#the working title for this was 'martin sure do be a poet' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

grahamfolgersdeliciousnotebooks · 2 years

Text

For @jonmartinweek Day 5 - Poetry

(view this work on AO3)

Jon had always thought he was rather good with words. He had a degree in literature from Oxford, after all; he could write an essay with the best of them. Verbal communication had, admittedly, never been his strong suit, but he managed. Even if he wasn’t eloquent, he could always get the point across.

Lately, though, he felt completely tongue-tied. He’d spent the better part of a year just trying to get Martin to speak to him, and now he had his ear near-constantly - from the moment he woke up beside Martin each morning, to the moment they fell asleep in each other’s arms each night - and he couldn’t begin to put everything he felt into words.

He knew he had the most important part covered. He said I love you freely, almost thoughtlessly - the words were never far from his mind, and sometimes he didn’t even realize he’d said them until Martin said them back. But he wanted Martin to know precisely how he felt - all the love, all the joy, all the agony he’d felt before, when he thought he’d missed his chance, all the relief he’d felt upon realizing he hadn’t. He wanted Martin to know that he felt safer here with him - on the run from the police and about a dozen supernatural threats but together - than he ever had before. He wanted Martin to know that he thought about him, always, even when they were apart.

Most of what he said, though, was completely mundane. It was all comments about the weather, debates about whose turn it was to do the dishes, reminders that they were running out of eggs.

And, occasionally, arguments about poetry.

“You really don’t like any poetry?” Martin asked one night as they lay curled on the couch together, a fire roaring in the hearth beside them.

“I didn’t say that!” Jon protested, “I said I don’t like most poetry. I just- I just don’t really see the point.”

Martin sputtered, voice going high-pitched with indignation. “The point? It’s art, Jon, the point is to make you feel things!”

“I know, I just think prose does that a lot more… cleanly.” Jon couldn’t exactly make out exactly what Martin muttered in response to that, but he thought he sensed the gist of it. “I’m sorry!” he said, though he was laughing.

“No, no, you can’t help it,” Martin conceded. “A poem either affects you or it doesn’t, it’s not something you can control. I’m going to find a poem that affects you, though!”

“I’ll save you some time and tell you that I’ve never liked Keats.”

Martin sighed. “I can’t believe I love you.”

Jon snuggled closer until he was more or less in Martin’s lap, and Martin instinctively wrapped his arms around him. “I love you, too,” Jon said, choosing to ignore the first half of the statement.

“Ooh, wait!” Martin said, pulling away briefly and sitting up to grab his phone from his pocket. “I have an E. E. Cummings poem saved to my phone!” Jon raised an eyebrow, and Martin explained, “The title’s really long and I can never remember it. I got tired of googling, like, ‘e. e. cummings tree hands fingers’ every time I wanted to read it, so I just took a screenshot.” He scrolled through the photos saved to his phone, brow furrowed in concentration, until he came to the correct one. “Here!” he said, passing the phone to Jon, “What do you think of this?”

Jon read it. He wanted to like it, he really did - if Martin liked it enough to save it to his phone, he wanted to love it, but in truth it felt like a tidy encapsulation of all of his frustrations about poetry. Why couldn’t poets ever just say what they meant? Why did they have to construct sentences that were blatantly incomprehensible and then pat themselves on the back for their own cleverness?

“It’s… nice,” he lied, rather unconvincingly.

“You hate it.”

“I don’t… I just don’t get it! If you love it, then I’m sure there’s something there, but h-honestly, I don’t even know what it means! A-And I know poetry doesn’t have to obey the rules of grammar and syntax, but this isn’t poetic, it’s just wrong!”

“That’s the point!” Martin insisted. “All the syntax is just off enough that it trips you up and makes you stop and think - A-And you can’t exactly make sense of it with your logical brain, but you can feel it-” he cut himself off suddenly, losing momentum mid-monologue and seeming to curl in on himself. “O-Or that’s how I see it, anyway. I never actually studied poetry, so-”

“No, no, go on!” Jon said. Even if he didn’t agree with his interpretation, it was mesmerizing to watch him talk about something he was passionate about. “What else do you like about it?”

“Well, the parentheticals, for one. They feel like - not afterthoughts, exactly, but like they’re so obvious that he doesn’t need to say them out loud, but he does anyway, and- and I don’t know, there’s something so romantic about that. And the second stanza! Did it really not make you feel anything?”

“Not really,” Jon admitted, almost ashamed.

“Maybe you just need to hear it out loud,” Martin said, “Sometimes that helps.” He sat up. With the hand that wasn’t holding his phone, he grabbed Jon’s hand, and Jon listened with rapt attention as he read.

now all the fingers of this tree(darling)have

hands, and all the hands have people; and

more each particular person is(my love)

alive than every world can understand

and now you are and i am now and we're

a mystery which will never happen again,

a miracle which has never happened before–

and shining this our now must come to then

our then shall be some darkness during which

fingers are without hands; and i have no

you: and all trees are(any more than each

leafless)its silent in forevering snow

—but never fear(my own, my beautiful

my blossoming)for also then's until

And Jon still couldn’t say he understood it, really, but he thought he could almost see the appeal. There was something there, but it might just have been the sound of his boyfriend whispering the words my own, my beautiful, my blossoming, into the quiet of their cabin.

***

They had developed a routine, since they came to Scotland. Every Tuesday, they would gather up all the books they’d read in the past week and head to the library. Martin would go in first, return the books, pick out a few for himself, and make sure that the regular weekday librarian was in, and had not switched shifts with the weekend librarian who’d had an encounter with the Dark when she was a child. (They’d discovered this one unfortunate Saturday when Martin had had to all but drag Jon out of the library to make sure he didn’t Compel her.) If the coast was clear, Jon would spend the day in the library while Martin ran errands. He’d pick out a week’s worth of books for himself, read in the back room on the second floor that was always completely unoccupied, and print out recipes he wanted to make in the week ahead on the library’s ancient computers.

This particular Tuesday, Jon found himself unconsciously gravitating toward the library’s scant poetry section. He hadn’t forgotten his conversation with Martin, and he wanted to understand. He pulled an anthology off the shelf more or less at random and flipped through the table of contents to find that it contained several love poems by E. E. Cummings. That seemed as good a place as any to start.

He read one, and he thought he understood.

***

Jon ran the words over in his mind. He’d read the poem a dozen times - it wasn’t very long - and done his best to memorize it, but he worried the words would flee as soon as he tried to say them out loud. He should have followed Martin’s lead and taken a picture.

After dinner, as Martin set their plates in the sink and put the kettle on for tea, Jon broached the subject.

“Martin, love, there’s something I wanted to say.”

“Oh?” Martin turned around, and when Jon saw the spike of anxiety in his eyes, he hastened to say,

“Nothing bad!”

“Alright, then,” Martin said, “What is it?”

Martin watched him expectantly, and he looked so beautiful in the dim yellow light of their kitchen that for a moment, Jon couldn’t speak. “R-Right. Um…” It occurred to him then just how odd what he was about to do was. It had seemed, earlier, like a good idea, but now it just felt awkward, and embarrassing. But he couldn’t back out now, and, anyway, he had wanted to find a way to tell Martin how he felt, so he cleared his throat and tried to remember all the words.

He could feel the Knowledge of the correct words buzzing at the back of his skull, but he ignored it. He wouldn’t take the Eye’s help in this. He’d do it properly.

“What I wanted to say, was. Well, i-it was. Ahem.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)”

For a moment, Martin simply stared. “Jon, did you… Did you memorize an E. E. Cummings poem?”

Jon squirmed under his gaze, cheeks on fire. “I, erm. I did.” he said. He opened his mouth to explain further, but before he could, Martin had crossed the short distance between them and was pulling him into a kiss. Jon startled, but didn’t pull away. Instead, he leaned into the contact, bringing his hands up to cradle Martin’s face, embarrassment forgotten.

“Any, uh. A-Any particular occasion?” Martin asked when they broke apart. Jon shook his head.

“No, I just- I love you so much, Martin, and I don’t do enough to show it-”

“What?” Martin exclaimed. “Jon, you pulled me out of the Lonely! I think you’re pretty much covered on grand romantic gestures.”

“That doesn’t count,” Jon said, “that wasn’t romantic!”

“Agree to disagree on that,” Martin scoffed.

Jon started to protest, but Martin cut him off with another kiss.

“You don’t have anything to prove,” he said softly, and Jon nodded, and the moment passed. The kettle started whistling, and Martin pulled it from the hob as Jon turned his attention to the dishes. He ran Martin’s words over in his mind as he rinsed their plates from dinner. You don’t have anything to prove. Trust wasn’t always something that came naturally to him, but he trusted Martin. Which meant that, somehow, that must be true.

When the dishes were clean and Jon had set them on the rack to dry, Martin handed him a cup of tea, and eyed him thoughtfully as he took a sip from his own mug.

“I wonder if you’d like Mary Oliver,” he mused.

“Hmm?” Jon asked around a mouthful of tea.

“I still need to find a poem that makes you feel things.”

“I, uh. I rather thought I’d found one.”

“Well, yeah, you found one. But I promised that I’d find one.”

After that, as they finished their tea and rinsed out their mugs, and wandered into the living room, Martin kept speculating about what kind of poetry Jon might enjoy.

“Honestly, I bet you’d like Richard Siken,” he said as Jon finished lighting a fire in the grate and came to join him on the couch. “I should see if they have a copy of Crush at the library.”

Jon hummed his agreement as though he knew what he was talking about, and rested his head on Martin’s shoulder.

“I love you, too, you know,” Martin said after a moment. “You’re my- my world, and my fate, and ‘whatever the moon will sing’ and all of that.”

“The sun,” Jon corrected softly, “Whatever the sun will always sing.”

“Know-it-all,” Martin whispered.

“Yes,” Jon agreed, “Quite literally.”

Martin laughed, and turned to press a kiss to Jon’s temple, and Jon supposed he couldn’t be so bad with words after all.

(View this work on AO3)

#tma fic #jonmartin fic #long post #jonmartin week 2022 #jonmartinweek 2022 #jonmartinweek2022 #(just covering my bases)

18 notes · View notes

soveryanon · 4 years

Text

Reviewing time for MAG183!

- I’m not sure I can manage to put it into words quite right but: sounds-wise, this episode’s domain didn’t feel mind-blowingly new, it wasn’t something that felt “Oh! I’ve never heard something like this before!”? But the echoes, grinding and scratching were timed so well, giving so much strength and gravitas to the conversations, that it perfectly scratched an itch. I could hear that there was something close to Jon and Martin, that it was big, and mostly deserted, that it stood eerily in the overall wasteland, that they were two people alone against a whole world, a whole machine with gears and a mechanism ready to crush anyone?

- I LIVE for artist!Martin giving his commentary and overall throwing shade at the Fears’ taking of artistic licence liberties:

(MAG183) MARTIN: Oh, bugger off! ARCHIVIST: Everything all right? MARTIN: Oh, no, what e–, what e–, what even is that? It, it’s like Escher ate a bad cathedral and threw up everywhere.

He had shown interest in the Stranger’s carousel upon learning that the statements had been a poem, but shots fired for that tower, uh.

- Jon and Martin were so cute starting the episode! Their quick banter was adorable!

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s a building. A tower. … In a sense. MARTIN: Oh yeah? A–and what sense might that be? ARCHIVIST: [FAINTLY OMINOUS] … The Tarot sense. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS WITH LAUGHTER] Really? ARCHIVIST: Wha–? No? Sorry, it… felt like a good line…! MARTIN: No, no, it was, I just… I dunno, I… [FOND EXHALE] You did the look, and…! It’s fine, sorry.

Martin being IN LOVE and appreciating Jon’s cuteness! The return of Jon showing that he’s an occult/horror nerd! We had seen in season 2 that he was generally very knowledgeable about anything related to the supernatural, and in season 4 that he was into Neil Lagorio’s movies, I’m happy to get another trace of it!

(MAG076) MELANIE: So I came here to dig a bit deeper. ARCHIVIST: Really? Our… our library is extensive, but it’s hardly focused on the Second World War. MELANIE: No, but the most detailed description of the crash that I could find came from the report of a man called William W. Hay. And later in life William Hay… ARCHIVIST: Became a noted occultist, whose memoirs and researches were only ever published in a heavily edited form. And we have unexpurgated copies. MELANIE: Exactly.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Statement ends. Hm. Neil Lagorio… You ever see any of his work? DAISY: No. Not really into films. ARCHIVIST: Oh, they were… Well, let’s just say that it’s not a complete shock there was something unnatural to them. Didn’t know we had copies in the Institute, though; let alone original cuts. [CHUCKLE] Records indicate they [PAPER RUSTLING] ended up in… Artefact Storage. DAISY: Probably best that they stay there. ARCHIVIST: … Yeah. Yes, of course.

But SOB x2 since:

* Tower-in-the-tarot-sense meaning ominous stuff… and change. (While Jon knew they would soon come face to face with the choice to take the route through Martin’s domain.)

* Crying over the fact that we’ve seen and learned quite a few outside-of-the-job aspects of Jon this season, comparatively to the previous ones? He’s cute! He’s making jokes! He mentioned his student days a bit in MAG165, and visiting Upton House as a kid in MAG180! And this is happening when the world has been forked over and Jon&Martin certainly won’t survive together past MAG200, which means they have at most seventeen episodes together remaining. Martin, and we alongside him, are seeing so many different, more casual aspects of Jon, and it’s at the end of things…

- I really like how information bounced around in this episode? It felt even more dynamic than usual, quickly shifting depending on some reaction, or going from an association to another:

(MAG183) MARTIN: What, what’s the deal, though? Parts of it almost look like– ARCHIVIST: The Institute. MARTIN: Yeah…! ARCHIVIST: Yes. [INHALE] It makes sense, after all it was… built on the ruins of what Robert Smirke constructed…! MARTIN: Smirke? … What, no! But, but, surely he’s– ARCHIVIST: Dead, yeah, I mean, yes. [CHUCKLING] Very much so! This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him, and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering…!

Ohohoh about Martin feeling like the tower looked a bit like the Institute, and Jon drawing similarities through Smirke – the Institute being built on the ruins of a Smirke building, and the current domain being dedicated to people like him. The Institute is coming closer and weighing on their minds, isn’t it? I really like that Martin immediately worried about Smirke potentially being alive-ish, since:

(MAG138) MARTIN: “The Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. My… humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon. It is likely too late for me, but I will not…” [PAPER RUSTLE] Uh… [INHALE] The, hum… The letter ends there. Uh… Ap–apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh… [FLIPPING THROUGH PAPERS] Apoplexy. Mm. I–I don’t know how the letter reached the Archives, I mean… Well, I can guess, but…

… he had read Smirke’s last words before he died. (But Martin has seen enough by now to know that there is always a risk for people to not have actually died; on that front, we’re safe, Jon confirmed! Loving Jon’s chuckle: ah yeah, no, Smirke, “very much so” dead from Jonah.)

(Also loved the “[those] who tried to categorise the world with themselves at the centre” shade: yep! That’s West-Eurocentrism and Smirke’s little gang for you!)

- About the way the world works now since the Change, I’m curious about Jon’s wording as “the architecture of [the world’s] suffering”, since it’s echoing the title of Smirke’s statement, “The Architecture of Fear”: my understanding is that right now, the world is mostly running on a loop of people’s fears => feeding and shaping the landscape => which hurts people by turning those realised fears against them => squeezing the fear out of them => feeding the landscape, etc.

What is quite curious is the status of Smirke’s taxonomy in the current world. Jon went off on a rant about how Smirke and people who attempted to classify had been wrong all along because it was meant to fail… while he himself has persistently been using the very same classifications during this very season:

(MAG166) ARCHIVIST: Look, we can talk about it later, we’re– coming to a… “domain of The Buried”, and [STATIC RISES] I would really rather… […] God, I hate The Buried. [DEEP BREATHS] … End recording.

(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] “Knowing”, “seeing”… i–it’s not the same thing as… understanding. Every time I try to know what The Web’s plan is, if it can even be called a plan, I see… a hundred thousand events and causes and links, an impossibly intricate pattern of consequences and subtle nudges, but I–I can’t…! … I can’t hold them all in my head at the same time. There’s no way to see the “whole”, the, the point of it all. I can see all the details, but it doesn’t… provide… context or… intention. I suppose The Web doesn’t work in knowledge, not in the same way.

(MAG173) MARTIN: That’s the avatar for this place? ARCHIVIST: Callum Brodie, thirteen years old. He guides the children through their fears of The Dark.

(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: I’m not entirely sure what you were expecting, it’s The Vast. The clue is in the name! MARTIN: Yes, all right…!

(MAG176) MARTIN: … Besides, I thought The Hunt was meant to make you go faster. ARCHIVIST: Depends on the type of pursuit. [INHALE] Besides, the chase isn’t… really the point of this particular place.

(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Bad therapists. Let’s just say it’s the fear of bad therapists, filtered through The Spiral. BASIRA: That’s… a lot more nuance than I’ve gotten used to since everything went wrong. ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. The Spiral is nothing if not insidious. […] You just heard what The Spiral does to people, you can’t… trust her.

“constructed the architecture of [the world’s] suffering” kind of implies that they did manage something, even if it doomed the world? Is it specifically about Jonah using the division into 14 in his incantation? We’ve seen that that one had limitations, since The Extinction also got there anyway… But at the same time, true that at this point, we would still force-apply Smirke’s labels to anything anyway.

- Loved Jon sounding awfully pedantic and (fake-)poetic at the same time:

(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Bit of a mouthful. ARCHIVIST: Would you prefer I described it as a… “cascading recursion of shifting arrogance and hubristic dead-ends”? [STATIC RISES] [THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [CONSTANT HIGH-PITCHED FREQUENCY] HELEN: I would. [FOOTSTEPS] [THE DOOR SHUTS] [STATIC FADES] MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen.

AND HELEN HAVING THE BEST ENTRANCES. It also cleared up something for me (unless I had already realised it and forgot about it since then): the high-pitched sound we hear when she’s around is the mark of Helen and Michael, not of the corridors – if the door is open or characters are inside of the hallways, we’ll hear some of the usual crackling static, but we heard it rise when Helen arrived and fade when the door shut behind her (and same thing with her departure, it was briefly heard when she opened the door).

- Shots fired, MARTIN PLEASE:

(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen. Might have guessed you’d be into weird architecture. Very much your area of expertise, no? HELEN: Hmm, depends! Would you describe “petulant poet” as your area of expertise? I am weird architecture.

And Helen went equally incisive on that one, but also UUUUUH WAS IT A SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO PETER’S COMMENT ABOUT MARTIN…

(MAG158) MARTIN: I’m… saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND] PETER: Martin, this is not the time for petulance; there are bigger things at stake, here.

This was the only time someone referred to Martin as (acting) petulant… I mean, Helen not missing one second of MAG158 wouldn’t be surprising (she did tell Jon at the end of MAG157 that she would be enjoying the show), but ;; Little chilling when remembering Elias-Peter-Martin in the Panopticon and Martin refusing to kill Jonah there…

- I was right to suspect that Helen might have been unable to know where Jon&Martin were over their stay at Upton House, and that she wouldn’t be pleased about it!

(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you, but you both just vanished. ARCHIVIST: Aaah… Right, I see…! HELEN: I was so looking forward to catching up after that whole Basira and Daisy thing, but then, pfft! You both disappear. I’d be very keen to know how you managed that little trick. MARTIN: Why, it caught us by surprise too, I mean, we, we actually ended– ARCHIVIST: [FIRMLY] We found somewhere to rest. That’s all. MARTIN: … Oh, yeah. Ah, yes, hm. HELEN: Fine. Be like that. I can appreciate the particular pleasure of a kept secret. ARCHIVIST: I’m sure you can.

* Salesa’s zone seems to be protected as long as you don’t physically find it? I wonder how Annabelle managed to find it, still, since Jon only become aware of that blind spot when they arrived nearby; how did she become aware of it in the first place? Did it feel like a hole in the world’s web?

* Awww for Jon keeping the secret and conveying to Martin that they should keep quiet about it ;w;

* AHAHAHHAHA for Jon’s “aaah”, which was absolutely a mischievous grandpa sound. Jon ready to cause trouble, with a smug smile on his face.

- … I love how Helen could observe that the dynamic of the exchange was slipping out of her control (Jon&Martin knew something that she didn’t, didn’t feel threatened by her, and Jon was amused to keep it out of her reach) and immediately tried to go for the throat again:

(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway. Such a shame about Basira and Daisy. I was really rooting for them to make up. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS] Since when? What happened to– I mean, how did you put it… a, “a quick shot to the back of her head, and then back in time for tea”, or whatever?

Martin: Forgive and forget? NO, RESENT AND REMEMBER AHAHAHAHAH.

Direct reference to the fact that Helen indeed ~offered her door to Basira~ to quickly get to Daisy and execute her:

(MAG177) HELEN: I can offer a shortcut. Take you right to that murder machine you call a partner. MARTIN: Basira… Jon can’t go through Helen’s doors, we, we couldn’t come with you. HELEN: Basira is a strong, independent woman. She doesn’t need you two holding her hand. Anyway, it’ll be dead quick. Two minutes, door-to-door, quick shot to the back of Daisy’s head, and we’ll be home before you know it!

Laughing that Martin added the tea mention (Martin, you single-track minded tea-aficionado), but I’m glad that he remembered it full well to throw it in her face; it wasn’t even a personal attack towards Martin, it was something Helen tried to do to Basira, I’m glad that Martin is still absolutely offended about it ;w;

- I felt like Jon and Helen had two definitions of “what we want”: Helen potentially talking about quick, short-term wants (even if they turn out to be self-destructive), while Jon was more about well-thought decisions and choices?

(MAG183) HELEN: [EXASPERATED SIGH] Oh, give over. I was obviously just prodding her, trying to make a point. She didn’t want to kill her. ARCHIVIST: What we want doesn’t matter much these days. HELEN: Oh, [RASPBERRY NOISE], nonsense. What we want is the only thing that matters these days. And Basira wanted to join Daisy. ARCHIVIST: She made her choice. HELEN: With your assistance. ARCHIVIST: It was still her choice. HELEN: [SIGH] What a waste. ARCHIVIST: No. [INHALE] It wasn’t.

There have been a lot of discussions about “choices” and “wants” throughout the series (with big moments in MAG092, MAG117 and MAG147), so it felt a bit nice that Jon seems to have reached a point where he could draw a line between both? Jon, Martin and Basira didn’t want this world, don’t want the way it operates and what it inflicts on them; it doesn’t mean they can’t weigh options and make specific decisions – Basira, to honour her promise to Daisy and kill the monster she had become; Jon, to not smite for revenge (and Martin, to face his own domain).

I LOVE HOW JON WAS FIRM ABOUT BASIRA’S CHOICE MATTERING ;w; It once again reminds me of Martin’s line to Simon: “I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.” (MAG151); the little things, the individual existences and choices, their own stories, still having value in the expanse of the universe…

- Martin! It’s a delight to see him so firm, having faith in Basira although he’s been so worried for her:

(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: Martin, this is what she needs. MARTIN: No, no! I–it’s…! BASIRA: It’ll… MARTIN: It’s completely– […] … We’re not doing this. BASIRA: [SOFTLY] Martin. Please. [SILENCE] MARTIN: … [SIGH] You’d better look after yourself. BASIRA: I will.

(MAG180) ARCHIVIST: How are you doing? About… MARTIN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’m… I don’t know. I’m–I’m not sure how to feel; just… pressing on, you know? ARCHIVIST: I do. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Do you think she’ll be okay without us? ARCHIVIST: Oh, she’s made it this far. MARTIN: … Yeah. I just worry.

(MAG183) MARTIN: Basira is… She’s going to be okay.

And then pointing out that he was involved in the discussion too and that he wanted to know what the other two knew already and not be kept out of the loop:

(MAG183) HELEN: Oh. Is she? Do you want me to tell you what she’s been up to while you were “resting”? Where she is right now? ARCHIVIST: You don’t need to. I already know. MARTIN: I don’t. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: She’s currently moving through, uh… “The Void.” [STATIC FADES] Hungry shadows drifting in the dark. She’s been there a long time now, struggling to find the path. MARTIN: But she will? ARCHIVIST: I think so. HELEN: Yeah, she does always seem to manage, doesn’t she? It’s impressive. Although a little bit… tempting at times.

I’m not absoooolutely sure about Basira’s status: is “the void” a space between domains, or is it a Dark domain that Basira is having trouble finding the exit of, since unlike Jon, she can’t just “know” the paths? I suspect the latter but I’m not 100% certain. If it’s indeed The Dark, that’s a close to home one for her, since she had a few brushes with it over the course of the show – the Section 31 expedition to save Callum Brodie, leading to Rayner’s death and Basira’s decision to quit the police, her research to find out more about the People’s Church of the Divine Host (as shown in season 3) and her overall worry about them, which allowed Elias to convince her that they would attempt another ritual in Ny-Ålesund, leading to her discovering what “Rayner” was and travelling there with Jon, finding Manuela and the Dark Sun mid-season 4…

;ww; for Jon having faith in Basira, too… And the fact that once again, Basira has it a bit rougher than Jon&Martin (Jon had already told Martin that it had been a difficult journey for her, before they reunited). Helen does have a point that Basira seems to manage to find her way out in general: she had successfully escaped The Unknowing on her own, she had survived The Flesh’s attack on the Institute, she had pursued Daisy in the apocalypse… Basira has already gone through Helen’s corridors (offscreen at the end of MAG143, to return to the Institute), I’m YIKES about Helen implying that it would be “tempting” to grab her. (… But at the same time, why hasn’t she done it already, if she is capable of doing it? It might be a bit more complicated than that?)

- … I love Martin, I love that he was RIGHT to point out that Helen had just waltzed in to try and steer chaos:

(MAG183) MARTIN: Look, Helen, what do you even want? Okay, you keep turning up like a bad penny and, honestly, it, it seems like it’s… it’s just to be a dick! HELEN: Gasp! I am trying to be friends, Martin. Forever is a long time. And I occasionally like to have some company that isn’t… screaming. MARTIN: … What do you even think friendship is? HELEN: I dunno, do I? The only personhood I have is from someone I ate.

It feels like Helen has REALLY tried hard to make up for the weeks(?) she couldn’t find Jon and Martin? She went extra-hard on them: first with Basira, then implying to Jon that he had manipulated her into killing Daisy, then pointing out that Basira was not safe at the moment and still at risk of falling prey to other Fears (including herself), then trying to mock Martin about his domain, trying to guilt-trip Jon for not having told him about it yet, and when she finally managed to get Martin shocked and upset… job done, byebye.

Is it that she’s trying to get Jon so riled up he ends her? “Helen” used to like Jon and to turn to him (MAG101: “Helen liked you so… there’s a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.” / MAG115: “Before, talking to you made Helen feel better.”), before she was absolutely Down With Doors And Murders (MAG146: “We do what we need to do when it comes to feeding, don’t we? … Don’t we, Archivist?”), is it a remnant of that? Or is it really just an attempt at confusing Jon and Martin further, feeding from them Spiral-style?

- More about Martin’s domain later, but the reveal was BRUTAL, and yet not coming out of nowhere; we knew he had one, we knew he had almost been trapped in the Lonely house in MAG170 and the question was whether or not it had been (/was still) his domain once Martin got freed from it, but there was also the question of how Martin was able to walk in the apocalypse unharmed (was it due to Jon’s proximity, Martin’s connection to The Eye as an assistant, etc.), and Basira’s own status after Daisy’s death… so, yay! Answers and clarifications, and as usual, nothing feeling like a plot-twist, just things that make sense, and that we already had most of the information about!

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Martin… MARTIN: Are there people, Jon? ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: Are there people in my domain? ARCHIVIST: Not many. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Do you need to do your… your thing? Make a statement about whatever’s going on in there? … I could use a moment to think. ARCHIVIST: Sure thing. Yeah, I–I’ll… [INHALE] Yeah. [EXHALE] [BAG JOSTLING] [DEPARTING FOOTSTEPS]

Sobbing a bit about Martin’s priorities (“Are there people, Jon?”) and Martin asking for a quick me-time. It wasn’t ice-cold, Martin turned it into something useful for both of them (expecting that Jon would have to give his statement anyway), but aouch, he sounded absolutely shattered inside while blank on the surface…

- Yes, yes, yes, reminder that Smirke’s categorisation is arbitrary and just like the Doctor’s theory, sometimes just doesn’t work, because it’s trying to force-apply rules and a classification over something that resists it (and because the classification is not perfect from the start), but hey, that’s most theories and classifications out there anyway, so: Escher reference, the functioning of the Tower reminding me of the Great Twisting, and the reasonings sometimes reminding me of Gabriel’s work (MAG126), plus Helen popping by – it was Spiral stuff, right?

Well! I felt like it looks like Spiral, but the Doctor’s fears by themselves:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “But it is not the fall that terrifies him, not the pain of the impacts, but the fact that none of them should be there. That it doesn’t make sense, and it must make sense, there must be a system, there must be, because if there isn’t– [THE BODY LANDS WETLY] He lands with a heavy smack onto rough limestone, and lies still, his body twisted and broken. He knows it will knit itself back together, slowly, painfully, as it always has before. But the thought of starting over, of composing yet another theory, fills him with a deep dread.”

… are more something I would identify as Eye (fear of a truth) and Hunt (fear of having to return to the start, to have to elaborate a new theory from scratch, again and again, of being trapped forever)?

It was really reminiscent of Smirke thinking back over his life, his hubris and the pride of being the one who would have found the answer, to the point where he would reject reality if it didn’t match his taxonomy (refusing to, well… do what you do with a theory: change, or evolve and perfect it when its flaws are pointed out):

(MAG138, Robert Smirke) “I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any ‘secret book’ can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed. So yes. Hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals. […] Would you have me separate The Corruption between insects, dirt and disease? To, to divide the fungal bloom from the maggot? No. No, I… stand by my work. And thus, we must conclude that the only explanation is a new Power, created from what was once others, yet also distinct. And if such change is possible, how then can any “true balance” be achieved through immutable, unchanging stone…?”

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “If they are feeling very confident, they may lean down and stretch a curious tongue beyond their chipped teeth and rotten gums, desperate to add another sense to their observances – more evidence to support their declaration of what the world must be. […] They must simply study and learn, if they are to escape the labyrinth. They will be the first to escape. The one who sits in the central chamber cannot remember his name. But he knows that people called him “doctor”. He made sure of that; to ignore it would have been the greatest disrespect, and he will not be disrespected. […] He knows, for a fact, that this is the central chamber because he is the one sat here. […] They’ll all remember him forever, the first to escape the Monument. His name will be hallowed with the greats: Doctor, uh… Doctor…”

Same old pride, Leitner knew that well too (MAG080: “But I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That ‘The Library of Jurgen Leitner’ would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris.”) and Gerry didn’t have many nice things to say about it (MAG111: “Flamsteed, Smirke, Leitner. Idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasn’t worth knowing.”). Loved how the statements came for Smirke’s life and was absolutely ruthless about it – but maayyybe a bit too ruthless, even? Jon didn’t express much sympathy for “fools like Smirke” either, and this is a rare case in season 5 where I find that the statement was a bit lacking in empathy for… people who were technically victims. I mean! Insufferable pedantic academics sure are a type, they’re really not having the worst life out there, but it makes me feel a bit weird, with season 5’s overall tone, that the episode had that vibe of “serves them well, they’re insufferable” about people who were technically still trapped in a domain and suffering from it?

… I still laughed a lot about the Doctor vs. Professor rivalry and how they solved their argument:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: “The doctor that lies on the floor has recovered, just enough to laugh. ‘You’re still working on mineral theory? How painfully outdated.’ A flash of genuine fear crosses the face of the professor at this dismissal, before he picks up his chunk of granite, and begins to smash the doctor’s head in, yet again.” [SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PEER REVIEW]

Academia unleashed.

(- OKAY, I HAVE TO CONFESS that when the character could only remember his title as “Doctor”, with Smirke having been mentioned earlier, my mind just jumped to Doctor Fanshawe… ;; He had left a strong impression on me, okay.)

- ;w; Over the fact that Martin got his me-time and that it was enough: he was clearly tense, but he came back with direct questions and knew what he wanted cleared up…

(MAG183) MARTIN: Finished? ARCHIVIST: Yes. MARTIN: Good. … I need you to explain something to me. ARCHIVIST: All right.

- I can’t believe that Martin Global Heartthrob Blackwood made The Eye FALL FOR HIM too:

(MAG183) MARTIN: How do I have a domain? That doesn’t make any sense. ARCHIVIST: It’s like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched. MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, we’ve been over this. ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means…

Jane, Peter, Simon, Elias, Salesa, Annabelle, now Beholding – do you have any limit, Martin.

!! I’m excited over the fact that Martin’s entanglement with Beholding stuff was acknowledged! Comparatively, Melanie had read 2 statements (MAG086, MAG106) and Basira 1 (MAG112). Meanwhile, Martin had read 12; plus, although Tim, Melanie, Martin and Basira had taken (… or tried to take) one live statement each in MAG100, Martin had also taken 3 additional full statements:

MAG084, Adrian Weiss (Corruption) MAG088, Enrique MacMillan (Buried) MAG090, Ross Davenport (Flesh) MAG095, Luca Moretti (Slaughter) MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss (Dark) MAG100 (live), Lynne Hammond (Desolation) MAG104 (live), Tim Stoker (Stranger) MAG108, Adonis Biros (Lonely) MAG110, Alexia Crawley (Web) MAG134, Adelard Dekker (Extinction) MAG138, Robert Smirke (Eye) MAG142 (live), Jess Tyrell (Buried, Eye) MAG144, Gary Boylan (Extinction) MAG149, Judith O’Neill (Extinction) MAG151 (live), Simon Fairchild (Vast) MAG156, Adelard Dekker (Extinction)

With Simon highlighting that Beholding had compelled him through Martin:

(MAG151) SIMON: Hm! No wonder I’m so sympathetic to The Lonely. You know: this really is a place for self-discovery, isn’t it? [CHUCKLE] “Statement ends”, I suppose! MARTIN: Uh… I’m sorry? SIMON: Oh! Nothing, just my own hubris. I should have known. When I came here, I said to myself: “Simon,” I said, “you’re going to answer this young man’s questions, but you’re not going to give The Watcher a statement. You’re better than that.” But it’s a hard one to resist, isn’t it? You get in the flow of talking about yourself, and it all just… tumbles out. MARTIN: Mm, does seem like it.

Elias might have been eyeing him as back-up Archivist, too (although since then, we’ve learned of his bet with Peter which would have already been running at the time – it might have been that Elias mostly wanted to ensure that Martin wouldn’t die during the Unknowing because he’d be needing him afterwards):

(MAG116) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] What about Martin? MARTIN: What about me? ARCHIVIST: He should stay behind. MARTIN: What?! ELIAS: Really. MARTIN: Why? ARCHIVIST: Too many people might attract attention. MARTIN: No, no, I can help, I’ve been reading the statements! ELIAS: … Quite right, er, probably best he does stay behind. BASIRA: What, so you have a backup if Jon doesn’t make it? ELIAS: I’m sure that won’t be necessary.

Martin did a lot of research, read these statements aloud, took live statements, was hinted as a potential replacement; tape recorders have spawned around him like they do with Jon, even outside of statements, and Martin had been exceptionally kind towards them on multiple occasions; there had been that little moment of Martin somehow knowing that Jon was alive back in season 3 (MAG088: “It’s the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jon’s still alive. Not sure why, but I’m sure of that. But Sasha, I…”), shortly before we had learned about Jon’s own Knowing powers developing; we don’t know why and whether that was Beholding or The Web or something else, but Martin had been able to know how to get Jon out of the Coffin in season 4:

(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, is… why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] It’s a question, Martin, it’s– it’s not an accusation. MARTIN: I don’t know. And I just… felt like it might help. He’s always recording, I thought… it–it might help him… find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] … I don’t know. … M–maybe? I–I, I definitely wanted to do it… PETER: But? MARTIN: I’m… I’m not sure where the idea came from. PETER: You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous. MARTIN: Sure.

… And Peter’s whole plan relied on the fact that Martin was initially touched by Beholding:

(MAG134) PETER: [BREATHES] I’m still working out some of the kinks. But I believe I have a plan. However, it requires this place, and it requires someone touched by The Beholding. Elias was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unwilling to help.

(MAG158) PETER: It’s quite simple, really…! I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what it’s doing, where it’s manifesting. Then we can stop it. MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely end… very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So that’s it… Both “lonely” and “watching”. PETER: You must admit you’re the perfect candidate. MARTIN: I suppose I am.

Beholding baby!! Now coming in an additional Lonely flavour.

- Mmmmmmmm… The way Jon put it, it seems that Beholding is consciously rewarding its servant and:

* It could be Jon trying to make sense of something else, that he doesn’t understand? Gertrude didn’t think that the Fears were able to “think” at all (MAG145: “Sometimes, I think They understand us as… little as we understand Them. We don’t think like They do.” “I’m not actually convinced they “think” at all.”); reward&affection could be primitive enough feelings for a blob of terrors to work out (Martin fed Beholding as an assistant by reading statements => Beholding grants him things in the hope of getting fed even more?), but I don’t know, I can’t help but wonder if this is just Jon humanising the Fears a bit too much? It’s curious that Beholding got “fond” of Martin precisely when Jon himself fell in love with him – could Jon’s feelings have influenced Martin’s position in the apocalypse, could Jon be having a bit more power over the landscape than he realises?

* … If Beholding is rewarding its servants, that doesn’t bode well for Elias. WELL, no, I mean: it might mean that Elias is having a Great Time as a Beholding acolyte, which means it doesn’t bode well for my desire to see Elias get absolutely wrecked and wrong about being the “king of a ruined world”. I want him to have miscalculated, damnit! x’D

- I’m having so many feelings over Martin himself being unsure of what he wants, whether it’s better to know or to remain ignorant…

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched. MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, we’ve been over this. ARCHIVIST: Well, you’re a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye is… fond of you. You’re not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which means… MARTIN: [QUIETLY] That one of them belongs to me. But that’s… Ho–how can I be a “Watcher”? I, I didn’t even know it existed! ARCHIVIST: But you’ve suspected for a while now, haven’t you? MARTIN: Maybe? But that’s not “watching”! ARCHIVIST: Do you want me to tell you about it? MARTIN: No. … Yes. N–no, no, I don’t know, I don’t know. [SIGH]

Is it a remnant of his discussions with Tim in season 3? He’s basically gone the reverse of Tim about it:

(MAG098) MARTIN: Y’know, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that we’re not involved, we’re somehow fine. TIM: He’s an idiot. Look, we didn’t know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isn’t going to save anyone. MARTIN: No, I mean, you’re right, I guess.

Martin has seen enough to know now that ignorance doesn’t protect anyone, but also that knowledge can be used as a weapon – that the horrors are just made to hurt. I feel like, in his situation, noping out of Jon’s statements was one of his only ways to assert his boundaries (which had been denied from him — and from others — for a long time)? But here, the situation is different; it’s about Martin’s own involvement, he knew the knowledge would hurt anyway… but it’s also his load to bear? To at least face what is happening, since he’s benefitting from it, since he’s been made complicit (without ever wanting to)? It still goes perfectly with the exploration of exploitative and oppressive systems: Martin, unknowingly and unwillingly inflicting hurt, still being in a better situation than others… while not being directly responsible for it, not wanting to benefit from it. It really makes me want to see Jon&Martin find a way to reverse or improve things, to get people out of the domains or giving them the keys to escape them, and I don’t know if I can even hope something about this ;; (On the Jon&Martin front, things are so good; but it still feels so unfair for… everyone else.)

- Martin having a domain and being classified as a “watcher” finally explains why he hadn’t been impacted by the apocalypse since the Change! He had been able to get out of the domains’ grasp even when he wasn’t around Jon (he had fallen behind at the end of MAG163, he wandered around in the Web’s theatre, he left Jon alone for most of the statements), and there was still the question of… how he was still surviving without eating, and at the same time wasn’t (at least as far as we knew) trapped in a domain:

(MAG161) MARTIN: [MIRTHLESS HUFF] What about food? ARCHIVIST: What about it? When’s the last time you thought to eat, o–or even felt hungry? MARTIN: [FAINT] What…? Wha… Uh… I don’t know. ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever is sustaining us now doesn’t need us to eat. MARTIN: That… that can’t be possible– ARCHIVIST: It’s a new world, Martin, the natural laws are whatever they want them to be. And I suspect they don’t much care to keep humanity fed and watered.

I was wondering if it was Jon’s influence, or Martin being “trapped” in Jon’s domain, and Jon had also alluded to the possibility that they were themselves trapped in their quest towards the Panopticon:

(MAG169) ARCHIVIST: “Free” doesn’t really exist in this place. MARTIN: Apart from us. ARCHIVIST: I suppose. I–in a sense, though… [CHUCKLING] how much of that is because we are trapped in our own quest to– MARTIN: Okay, let’s, let’s not dive into another… ontological debate right now, not here. ARCHIVIST: Fair enough.

And Jon had even specifically told Martin that he had a domain, shortly before Martin got almost imprisoned in the Lonely house:

(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us. MARTIN: Oh. [PAUSE] Where’s yours? ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] I mean, we’re… traveling towards it. MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Hum… What about me? ARCHIVIST: … Would you… like me to… ? MARTIN: No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. ARCHIVIST: … Okay!

(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: I, I didn’t want to… look too ha–, I–I–I promised I wouldn’t… know you, and, and with the fog in all–all the rooms, I’ll, I just, I lost y–, I… I–I’m sorry. MARTIN: It’s okay. ARCHIVIST: … No, I… I tried to use the… to know where you were, but… it was… You–you were faint. It was so strange, i–it took me so long just to find you…! [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: Jon, it’s… okay. I promise it’s okay. This place tried, it really did, and honestly I… I wanted to believe it. But I didn’t. ARCHIVIST: This… “place”, i–it… [STATIC] My god…! […] I, I just… I wanted to make sure that you knew what this place was. MARTIN: It’s The Lonely, Jon. It’s me. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Not anymore. MARTIN: Hm! No. [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] No…! Not anymore.

And alright, that finally answers it: the Lonely house wasn’t his domain, wasn’t meant to be (but he was susceptible to it, got almost trapped in it as a “watched” although he eventually managed to reject and break free from it). His own domain was elsewhere, and Martin himself was amongst the “watchers” all along; Martin is living a bit like Helen in this apocalypse, having a fixed domain, but able to navigate elsewhere.

Aouch for Martin, since he had been encouraging Jon to smite domains’ rulers as soon as he discovered that Jon could do it; it was already murky territory for Jon himself (if the “avatars” and “monsters” just deserve to die, what about Jon?), it was awful with Callum (Martin himself drew the line at smiting a kid)… but now, we know it was directly including him, too, and that he had been fed through people’s pain all along. No wonder Helen had encouraged the smiting so hard, if she already knew they were kind of neighbours…

… Double-aouch for Jon, because he had offered twice the option for Martin to stay elsewhere, permanently:

(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: M–Martin, if you… did; i–if you wanted to forget… a–all of it, stay here and just… escape. I… I would understand. MARTIN: … N–no…! It’s comforting here, leaving all those… painful memories behind, but… It’s not a good comfort, it’s… I–it’s the kind that makes you fade, makes you… dim and… distant.

(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: I’m sorry, I… It would have been nice to stay. MARTIN: [WISTFULLY] Yeah… I’d almost forgotten what it was like, you know? A bit of peace, eh! ARCHIVIST: I mean, you could have… MARTIN: No, don’t say it, Jon. You know I never would. I–I can’t just “forget” about all the people out here! Besides, I’d rather be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with you than spend one more moment in paradise with her.

And Jon probably didn’t know what Martin’s domain was exactly, back then, since we heard the knowing static kick in when he described the domain in this episode? But he probably knew, already, that Martin having a domain didn’t mean that he belonged to it as a victim, but as a ruler, and that it would hurt Martin so much. (“No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.”, indeed ;;)

- I AM HAVING SO MANY FEELINGS OVER THE DESCRIPTION OF MARTIN’S DOMAIN…

(MAG183) [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely. Inhabited by a few lost souls whose fear is not of their isolation or their agonies, but that no-one… will ever know of them. That they shall suffer in silence, and be mourned by nobody. That’s why you can’t really see it. It’s why even if we do travel through it, you won’t be able to see… any of the people trapped there.

… It reminds me so much of what Martin probably experienced in his own flat, when Prentiss besieged him for two weeks and Martin was unable to contact anyone, and nobody came to check on him? Did Martin’s domain grow from his own old fears…?

It also reminds me a bit of Naomi’s brush with The Lonely:

(MAG013) NAOMI: The fog seemed to follow me as went and seemed to swirl around with a strange, deliberate motion. You’ll probably think me an idiot, but it felt almost malicious. I don’t know what it wanted, but somehow I was sure it wanted something. There was no presence to it, though, it wasn’t as though another person was there, it was… It made me feel utterly forsaken.

Overall, the description is extremely… typical from what we’ve seen of The Lonely: there was Naomi’s misadventure, Ethan disappeared and nobody even claimed his backpack (MAG048), Yetunde Uthman had “disappeared a year ago. And nobody noticed” (MAG150)…

(But from that description alone, it doesn’t sound very Beholding, despite what Jon said? I’m curious about the Eye aspect of it…)

- Can’t believe that Martin canonically turns out to be the Lonely Eyes love(hate)child, gdi. It really was a custody battle in MAG158.

- Extra-sad that Jon warned Martin that there was meaning in the fact that Martin didn’t know anything about his domain, and wouldn’t even be able to see people in there… It’s just so cruel, both for them, and for Martin, to learn that he’s been unknowingly contributing to their misery (because they fed him and he didn’t even know about them)?

Pretty sure that Martin will stay with Jon to hear that statement, at the very least ;; (Or could he ask for something more? We’ve seen Jon extracting Breekon’s statement in MAG128, I wonder if he could put something into someone’s head like Elias had done, allowing Martin to give that statement himself…)

- I’m wondering about Jon’s own domain, too, now! He said they were heading towards it, so it’s either the Panopticon, the Institute or the Archives, or a mix of those… or something close to it, on their way to it. If Martin’s domain is a mix of Lonely&Eye, is Jon’s pure Eye? A mix of the 14/15? A Web&Eye mix, given Jon’s own personal fears?

I know that Jonny (lovingly) called out the obsessive classification in this episode through Jon, who went off on a rant about the “neat little boxes”, but he’s still using the Smirke classification this season:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely.

(AND IN THIS VERY EPISODE… Jon…)

- On the one hand: feeling directly called out by Jon’s rant about how the divisions between avatars/monsters/humans/victims wasn’t and isn’t working, that reality escapes that division because it’s much more complicated than this:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [HEATED] Avatar isn’t a thing, Martin, it’s not–! It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now, there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and… [SIGH] Well. I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.

(It felt especially relevant with Callum Brodie: could we really tell that he was an “avatar” when he was still a freshly wounded kid, even if a tormentor himself?)

On the other hand, well, that was still a useful distinction to have to identify servants, and mostly, I’m not extremely convinced by Jon arguing that there is now a Clear BinaryTM in the new world, between the “watchers” and the “watched”, since:

1°) Helen herself explained the dichotomy to Martin (MAG166: “And so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid.”). Given that she mostly tries to confuse them… that’s a red flag.

2°) Despite Jon defending that binary, we’ve run into plenty of examples of things… not fitting into that new classification. He himself acknowledged that Basira’s status wasn’t established yet; we’ve seen Salesa, protected by his camera from the chaos; Jon has been unable to know about Georgie and Melanie, only hypothesising that they might in what-used-to-be-London; Martin, a watcher, could still have fallen prey to another domain… That’s already a lot of special cases around that “clear dividing line”…

3°) Somethingsomethingsomething about how it’s in Beholding’s best interest that Jon believes in a clear, unchangeable, dividing line which serves Beholding’s own interests. If things feel fixed and unchangeable, then there is no point trying to fight against it or find a loophole, right?

Given that a Watcher can get trapped in another domain… does that mean that it could be the case for Jon, too? We got a threat of it in MAG172, when Jon began to give the statement of the following act – if Martin hadn’t interrupted him, would Jon have ever been able to stop?

- Confirmation that Daisy had “trapped” Basira in her Hunt! I was suspecting it since Jon’s first wording:

(MAG164) MARTIN: Is Basira alive? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: Is she… in… o–one of these places? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: She’s alive. Out there, not… trapped in a–a hellscape, but… moving. [STATIC DECREASES] Hunting. She’s… she’s looking for Daisy. She’s a few steps behind.

(MAG183) MARTIN: … What about Daisy? Or Basira? ARCHIVIST: Daisy carved through the domains of others. Basira… well… In a very real way she was a sufferer in Daisy’s domain. Maybe the only one. Hunting, following, hurting. Now Daisy’s dead, she’s… free. Sort of. She’s inherited something of Daisy’s ability to move through the other domains. For now, she’ll… feed off what she sees in them. As to whether the Eye ultimately gives her a domain of her own… I don’t know yet.

* And now, Basira seems to have a peculiar status… Is it because she killed Daisy? Is it because she killed the ruler of her domain? Jon explained that a ruler’s death didn’t change much for the domain itself, but maybe it operates differently if a victim kills a ruler (… they become the new ruler?)

* Another reminder that Jon cannot see the future.

* Big Eyeball didn’t immediately give Basira a domain, but Martin got one. I see that favouritism, uh. (Joke, it does make sense given how Martin recorded a lot of statements and had worked at the Institute for years and years.)

- I love how Jon managed to explain why he hadn’t told Martin everything, and how Martin… indeed agreed that Jon had been mostly trying to respect his wishes about not knowing ;; It’s true that Martin had been adamant about not hearing much of the horror:

(MAG163) MARTIN: J–Jon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] … Please don’t tell me these things. ARCHIVIST: I… I’m sorry, I– There’s just so much! There’s so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and I– It’s filling me up, I need to let it out! MARTIN: I’m sorry, but tough. Okay? Tha–that’s not what I’m here for. [VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: “No… No!”] MARTIN: I can’t be that for you, I–I just can’t.

(MAG167) MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Hum… What about me? ARCHIVIST: … Would you… like me to… ? MARTIN: No, no. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. ARCHIVIST: … Okay!

(MAG183) MARTIN: You didn’t tell her any of that. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t think the metaphysics of her place in the fear ecosystem was something she’d be particularly interested in at that moment. MARTIN: Fair. But you seem very reluctant to tell anyone any of this stuff. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I did try, right at the start, but y–you didn’t seem to want to talk about it, so I didn’t push it. It’s hard, I have so much knowledge but… how do I decide what people want me to share, and what they never want to know?. MARTIN: I guess that makes sense.

But Martin seems to acknowledge that indeed, Jon had been trying his best about it…

(And now, I wonder if there is still other stuff that Jon hadn’t told Martin, in the same vein…)

- First choice for Martin:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I was going to bring it up at the crossroads. Inside. I only just realised we would be going this way. […] MARTIN: I guess that makes sense. … So what did you mean about the crossroads? When you were talking to Helen. ARCHIVIST: It’s a maze in there, something between a, a Rubik’s Cube and a Magic Eye picture. I can find us the way through easily enough but… well. For us, there are two ways out. Two paths to London. MARTIN: What are the choices? ARCHIVIST: One would be a long, winding route, we’d see a lot of horrors, but remain… personally untouched. MARTIN: And the other is my domain. ARCHIVIST: Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen. MARTIN: I thought Helen was her domain, wi–with all the doors and that? ARCHIVIST: She is, but she has a… position within this pseudo-landscape, like any other. MARTIN: O–okay. [INHALE] So, so, I mean, I suppose we’ve got to do that one, right? ARCHIVIST: We don’t have to, w–we–we could just– MARTIN: What, what? We could, we could dodge around it? Take the path of denial? I guess, but… what is it you keep harping on about? “The journey will be the journey”? [SIGH] I mean… It’s pretty obvious that this one is my journey.

! Glad that Martin didn’t hesitate and immediately understood what it was about – that it mattered to do it that way, that Martin had to face it, that this is how this world works. No hesitation about it. He got a demonstration with Basira, but still, he was quick to accept it.

I’m expecting a few episodes before Martin’s domain, so… with the overall rhythm of the season, they might reach the Institute by MAG189? And Hill Top Road during Act III?

- Since Jon mentioned that the path Martin ended up choosing had:

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Eventually. It’s a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen.

I wonder about those “faces we know”, since we’re running super-low on ~avatars~. Different options:

* Institute staff. Rosiiiie?

* Melanie&Georgie. A bit unlikely, given that Jon had trouble knowing what was the deal with them, I feel?

* Since Helen will be there, people who gave live statements to Jon and were trapped in his nightmare zoo. I’m mostly thinking about this one, especially since Jon’s “No one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! … Even me.”… (And if it’s about an internal and metaphorical journey, I feel like having to face people that Jon hurt, first unaware (he didn’t know about the nightmare zoo when he signed to become the Head Archivist), then partially unwilling but still doing it (he felt guilty about it but still hid it, still chose self-preservation instead of warning the others about it), would have its place…)

- In the same fashion, who is trapped in Martin’s domain? Unrelated people? Live statement-givers? (;; I’m thinking of Jess, who had the misfortune of being compelled by Jon and of giving a statement to Martin…)

… Given that it’s confirmed to be a “journey” for Martin too, I can’t help but squint at Jon’s wording, because. “Faces we know”. The only thing we know of Martin’s father is the fact that he looks like Martin… (MAG118: “The thing is, though, Martin: if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked like… all you have to do is look in a mirror~ The resemblance is quite uncanny. The face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her, feeding her, cleaning her, looking down on her with such pity–”)

- I’ll be having Annabelle’s words stuck in my head (ha) for a long time but:

(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Don’t worry, Martin. We’ll meet again. Hopefully when you’re feeling a little bit more… open-minded…! MARTIN: I wouldn’t count on it. ANNABELLE: I would. MARTIN: [SIGH]

… Was it a reference to Martin learning about his own domain and about how the world operates, his place in it? I think that Martin might be even more resolved to turn the world back at whatever cost, now that he knows that he is himself sustained by fear…

(LISTEN, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HOW WEB!MARTIN CAN STILL WI–)

- !! Footage of Martin saying “I love you” for the first time ;w; I love how it was the thing he was certain about, both a slight decompressing joke and a true statement, a reminder that he has faith in Jon, that he has something to cling to?

(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: If you’re sure. MARTIN: … I’m sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Let’s go.

(He had mentioned that he was “in love” in MAG170, I’m happy to hear him telling Jon, too!) And the fabric RUSTLED, SO LONG AND SO HARD, AND AT LEAST TWICE!! I love how the tension from right before and after the statement had faded by the end of the episode ;w; Rollercoaster of little emotions…

MAG184’s makes me think of something Leitner had said (more lore about the Fearpocalypse?), and of Vast and Corruption… with very different vibes. If Corruption, and keeping in mind that Jon has announced that they will be encountering “faces [they] know along the way”, it cooould contain Jordan Kennedy, the exterminator from Pest Control…? Especially given that both Jon and Martin had met him (Jon took his live statement, and Martin pleaded offscreen for him to get them the jar of Prentiss’s ashes to comfort Jon).

(Yessss, I am absolutely aware of the irony of still using Smirke’s categorisation after another episode in which we were told again that it is bollocks, but if Jon himself still occasionally labels the domain as one of the 15, so can I ♥)

#long post/#tma liveblog #mag183 #tma season 5 #the magnus archives #tma spoilers/

25 notes · View notes

cubeishorse · 4 years

Text

The Perfect Gift

It’s time for the holiday gift exchange and Martin pulled Jon’s name from the box. He has to find the perfect gift.

Contains: General jon/martin fluff, holiday party, just fluff and fun for the holidays

1,716 words

“Oh no.” Martin sat at his desk, still looking at the piece of paper he had pulled out of the box. It had been over twenty minutes since they pulled names for the holiday gift exchange, and the name hadn’t changed.

“Are you ever going to stop moaning over it?” Tim glanced over from his computer. “I’m not that hard to shop for. You’ll be fine.”

“Very funny.” Martin said, shaking his head and putting the paper in his pocket. “I got Jon.”

Tim stared at him. “And that’s… a bad thing? I figured you’d jump at the chance to give him something.”

“It’s not that it’s… what do I get him? It has to be perfect.” Martin buried his face in his hands. “Help me, Tim. Aren’t you good at this sort of thing?”

“Not really, but I got off easy this time.”

“Sasha?”

“Elias. A tie. Perfect.” Tim spun a little in his chair. “Can’t help you out with boss man, though. You’re going to have to talk to him, mate.”

“Mhm…” Martin looked back at the door to Jon’s office, which was, as always, closed. Jon complained that they chatted too much, and it distracted him from his research.

“Maybe ask him if he wants to have lunch together?” Tim turned back to his computer, deciding it was time to pretend to work again. He didn’t have an active case to research. “We used to all go out before he became the boss, and you had just as much of a crush then. Can’t be that hard.”

“Mhm.” Martin sighed, turning back to his own work. “Maybe. Do you think he’d say yes?”

“Never know until you ask.” Tim was already checking out of the conversation, searching online for what looked like very garish ties.

It still took almost an hour for Martin to convince himself to ask, and almost a minute of standing in front of Jon’s door to knock, but he was greeted almost instantly with, “Come in.”

Jon had a few small piles of paper spread across the desk in front of him, and he was focused on his laptop. A recorder sat on one edge, silent. Jon looked up. “Martin? Did you need something?”

“Oh. Hello, Jon. I…” Martin swore he could feel Tim watching him, could practically see the smile on his coworker’s face. “Lunch. Do you want to get lunch?”

“Lunch?” He sat up a bit more, looking at his desk. “I… don’t have food…”

“… why not?”

Jon stared at his desk for a moment before shrugging. “I suppose I forgot. But we could go to the café? I recall it having good options.”

“Where we all used to go? I haven’t been there in ages. I’d love to.”

“It’s a date.” Jon said, clearly not even realizing his words. Martin felt a blush. “Give me twenty minutes to get this all put away? I’ll come and get you when I’m ready.”

“Alright. Can’t wait.” Martin was smiling wide as he pulled Jon’s door shut behind him. Tim was indeed watching him.

“Good work, Romeo.”

“Shut up.” Martin buried his face in his hands, still blushing. “Just shut up.”

The walk to the café was relatively quiet. Jon had never been the best at small talk, and Martin was too nervous to bring anything up. Thankfully, it was a short trip, so they did their best to enjoy the silence as they went. They got a nice seat by the window, and because of the strange time, they had almost the whole café to themselves, which was fine by them both.

“Thank you for the invitation, Martin. I feel like you’re all so afraid of me now that I’m head archivist.” Jon was fiddling with the menu a bit.

“Oh yeah. No problem.” Martin watched Jon for a moment. “I think everyone is intimidated now? You know, since you’re our boss and all.”

“I’m not Elias.” He replied, disdain in his voice. “We can still chat. Hang out.”

“Hang out?”

Jon stared at him. “Yes.”

Martin couldn’t help but laugh. Jon using any sort of slang seemed out of place. “Any holiday plans?”

“No, nothing really. I never do a lot for the holidays, aside from attending the institute party.”

“That’s… that’s so sad! Nothing? No big dinner or gift giving?”

He shrugged a little, glancing out the window. “I don’t have family living anymore, and I have grown distant from friends. Are you surprised that I’m not the most popular?”

“I…” Martin paused, thinking over his words. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Jon waved a hand dismissively. “It’s fine. I’ve grown quite used to it. I’ll probably watch old Christmas movies, make myself something nicer for dinner. It might be lonely, but it is doing what I enjoy. How about yourself?”

“The research team is having a party that I’ll probably go to for a bit. My mum doesn’t like when I stay out too late – I have to take care of her, you know – so after the party, I’ll put together some sort of dinner for the two of us. Probably watch something cheesy after she’s gone to bed.” The waiter interrupted them, taking down their orders. Martin noted that Jon only ordered a cup of soup, and tried to decide if he looked any thinner.

“How have you all been doing with the change? I miss our chats.” Jon seemed genuinely interested in an answer.

Martin filled him in on their lives since Jon’s promotion. He told Jon about the fish incident in the break room, about how Robin in HR wouldn’t talk to Jen in Research for a week because of it. Jon seemed shocked that Sasha and Tim were dating. Jon couldn’t remember who Alex in Accounting was, but the story of him quitting and telling Elias off was still pretty funny.

As their lunch wound down, Martin was pleased to see that Jon had eaten his soup, along with half of Martin’s fries. What had started off as nerve wracking for Martin had turned into a fun conversation, something akin of the olden days.

“Do you still write poetry?” Jon asked, apropos of nothing. It took Martin completely by surprise.

“Oh. Uh. Yes? Not as much anymore, but I still try to. It helps me unwind.” Martin looked down at his mostly empty plate.

“Maybe someday you will let me read some.” Jon was leaning back, seeming to the world to be completely comfortable. “I will say, I have never found a poet I cared much for. If you wanted to, I would like your help with that. Finding a poet to enjoy, that is.”

And just like that, Martin had an idea. “Absolutely.”

Jon fidgeted in his holiday sweater. Four shops, and he hadn’t been able to find one that wasn’t at least a little itchy. He had a cup of cheap prosecco in one hand, mostly forgotten. It seemed like everyone else was having a great time, chatting and laughing, but Jon just felt out of place. The holiday party was always a bit of an awkward time for him.

“Jon?” Martin piped up from behind him. “You having fun?”

“Hm? Oh. Of course. Just feeling a bit out of place, I suppose. How does Elias even look like he’s enjoying himself?” Jon gestured over to where Elias was laughing with some of the other researchers, his new tie loosely tied around his neck. It was bright green with bright red and white candy canes adorning it.

“Um.” Martin gestured to a small gift bag in his hand. “I know it’s supposed to be… well. Secret. But I wanted to give you your gift?”

“You got me?” Jon let his gaze drift to the bag, curious. He set the prosecco down behind him, a bit thankful to not have to pretend to enjoy it anymore.

“Yes.” Martin kind of held it up. “I hope… I hope you like it.”

Jon took it, a faint smile on his lips. “I got Tim.”

The bluntness of the statement made Martin laugh. “It’s a secret, Jon!”

“I know, but…”

He drifted off as Tim yelled out, “Who in the hell got me coal?”

“I thought you might want to be in on that.” Jon said, laughing. Martin stared at Tim.

“You got him coal?” He couldn’t help but grin, giving away to laughter a second later.

“There’s a gift card to the coffee shop in there as well. But I did have to tease him somehow.” Jon gently took the bag away from Martin, his fingers lingering on Martin’s hand just a moment longer. “Do you want me to open this now?”

The blush that crept across Martin’s face was instantaneous. “Oh. Uh. You… you don’t have to… if you want to. You can wait. I… it’s…”

“Only if you want me to.”

“Sure? Yes. Sure.” Martin’s hand was still up in the air a little, empty.

Jon tucked the bit of tissue paper to one side to reveal a journal, with what looked and felt like actual leather. He tilted his head to one side, trying to make sense of it. Setting the bag on the drinks table, he unwound the strap that held the notebook shut, flipping through the pages. A careful cursive covered the majority of them.

“Martin.”

“You said you… you said you wanted to read some poetry. I found some of my… well, some of my favorite poems from my favorite writers, and I copied them down. It isn’t the best – my cursive has always been a bit rubbish – but I thought the nice book might help it look a little fancier and… um. At the end of the book are some of mine. I wrote who wrote what poems, and the titles. In case you wanted to find more.”

It was the front of the book that caught Jon’s eye, and he knew Martin was blushing even brighter.

Happy Holidays, Jon.

I hope you enjoy these.

Love, Martin

Love. Jon smirked.

“It’s beautiful, Martin. Thank you.” He leaned forward, having to tilt his head up just slightly to reach, and pecked a gentle kiss just to the side of Martin’s lips. “I do hope we can have lunch together again. I’d love it.”

#i am tired and haven't edited this much so be gentle with me?#jonmartin #just a fluff fic #jonathan archivist #martin blackwood #the magnus archives #tma fic

45 notes · View notes

thesethingsofours · 4 years

Text

Nina Simone, Duende & Pastel Blues

Nina Simone’s Pastel Blues is a true embodiment of duende — the rare depth and darkness that impels her work.

1969 © Jack Robinson / Hulton Archive

Her distinctive warble permeates thousands of movie soundtracks, hip hop samples and advertisements, let alone the countless personal moments by which people demarcate their lives. This omnipresence allows us to forget who Nina Simone was, and the outright value of her music. For the streaming generation, knowledge of such an artist is limited to “top hits”; on some Spotify, Sunday Mood playlist. Or worse, the songs will only wriggle into the brain from various attempts to sell Coca-Cola, Seat Atecas, Renault Clios, Volvo XC90s, Fords, Apple Watches, Chanel №5, Warehouse discount clothes, Virgin Flights, HTC Phones, Jockey underwear and Behr Paint.

Most egregious among these is the Muller Light yoghurt advert, inescapable for anyone sentient in early 2000s UK. It uses her 1968 song I Ain’t Got No, I Got Life, but only the second, I Got Life half; carving it off entirely from its I Ain’t Got No essence. In its truncated form, the song sounds like a free-wheeling celebration of life and limb: Got my hair, got my head / Got my brains, got my ears / Got my eyes, got my nose / Got my mouth, I got my smile. Yet the missing section is a lengthy condemnation of segregated American society, where disenfranchised black people had been given nothing to cling to: Ain’t got no mother, ain’t got no culture / Ain’t got no friends, ain’t got no schoolin’ / Ain’t got no love, ain’t got no name /…Ain’t got no god / Hey, what have I got? / Why am I alive, anyway?

Yes, the song contains positivity in tune and verse, but stripping the darkness from Simone’s work also strips away its incandescent light. It would be like taking Rodin’s Gates of Hell and shrouding everything except the seemingly peaceful thinker at the centre; or cutting the lightbulb from the top of Picasso’s Guernica and presenting it as a bright, merry, representative segment. Or a millionaire DJ taking Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech and turning it into a dance track during race protests and a global pandemic. But surely not even David Guetta would do that.

The reduction of such a deliberate and profound artist to commercialised snippets is saddening. In Simone’s case this is particularly true because of the highly unusual, powerful darkness that clutches her music. She has something rare. In Spanish, it is known as duende.

Duende

Rooted in Iberian cultures, duende derives from “duen de casa”, meaning “possessor of a house”. Originally the superstition of a dark, goblin-like spirit, it is now the concept of impassioned, death-endorsing, creative invention; typically associated with the performative aspects of Flamenco. In that context, poet and playwright Federico García Lorca describes its contemporary meaning (in his 1933 Buenos Aries lecture, Theory and Play of the Duende), as the “buried spirit of saddened Spain”.

As a guitar maestro explained to him, “the duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet”. Lorca quotes others, one, after listening to Paganini’s violin, identified it as, “a mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained”; or another, upon hearing Manuel de Falla perform Nocturno, proposed that, “all that has dark sounds has duende”. In Lorca’s own words:

For every man, every artist called Nietzsche or Cézanne, every step that he climbs in the tower of his perfection is at the expense of the struggle that he undergoes with his duende. Not with an angel, as is often said, nor with his Muse…

…With idea, sound, gesture, the duende delights in struggling freely with the creator on the edge of the pit. Angel and Muse flee, with violin and compasses, and the duende wounds, and in trying to heal that wound that never heals, lies the strangeness, the inventiveness of a man’s work.

Nina Simone embodies duende.

1968 © Hulton Archive

It exists not only within her more explicit protest songs, born of the Civil Rights movement, but is present in everything she did — a ferocity, fragility, sadness and authenticity that claws its way up her throat and flings itself from her open mouth. It’s an otherworldly channelling of something very few can access, but which audiences pray to feel. With music so steeped in darkness, using it to gleefully sell products is a comedy — a joke on the shamelessness naivety of consumers and marketeers — as well as a tragedy.

A Brief History

Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 and raised in Jim Crow-era North Carolina, Simone was ambitiously desirous of becoming a concert pianist — an uncommon career path for a young black girl at the time. Despite obtaining the ability to do so, she was instead funnelled into performing a mixture of jazz, gospel, soul and folk. And blues, in every shade. Her voice — ostensibly untrained — was burnished in the fire of necessity: if she wanted to earn money in the clubs, she had to sing as well as play piano. She electrified audiences, but remained persistently dissatisfied with how she was received and perceived:

It’s only normal to want acceptance from one’s own country for one’s gifts God has given you. I’m tired of begging for it. It took me 20 years of playing in clubs, in nightclubs, on the concert stage doing all these records to get a decent, real accurate review of my gifts by the New York Times… It was the first time I had been compared to Maria Callas as a diva. All before that I had been labelled a jazz singer, a blues singer, High Priestess of Soul, which… I am not sure what that is. I have studied piano 18 years! So yes I’m tired. I’m too old to keep asking for love from the industry. (Nina Simone, 1984)

Elevated by activists and aficionados alike, yet shunned by the industry at the height of her popularity after vigorously speaking out for black rights (see: Mississippi Goddam), she evolved as an artist in parallel with the revolution of television; first appearing in grainy monochrome and then in saturated technicolour. In the 12-year period between 1959 and 1971, she released 16 studio albums. In the years that followed, before her death in 2003, she released just four more.

Pastel Blues

These days, the idea of albums is virtually defunct, Drakefied to an incoherent heap of songs occasionally “dropped” like laundry, to be worn or discarded at the listeners behest. But as with other great artists, if the extent of Simone’s depth and duende is to be appreciated, it is essential to listen to her albums — the home of her authorship.

Pastel Blues is a nine track, 36-minute LP, mainly of covers and blues standards. It was released in October 1965, eight months after Malcolm X was assassinated, seven months after Bloody Sunday in Selma, and two months after the Voting Rights Act became law. Arguably, it arrived at the height of the movement. Nina Simone was 32. Just imagine.

Although the title suggests something soft and light, underneath the label, the substance is preternatural. As you listen, watch the image on the cover transform from a gentle gaze into a pointed glare; a stare in stereo. Altogether, it is a marvellous enunciation of Nina Simone’s darkness, with which she writhed in body, mind, and soul to give us some of the most memorable artworks of the 20th century. Pastel Blues gives her duende its due.

Listen to Pastel Blues on Apple Music

Listen to Pastel Blues on Spotify (1965 Live Version)

Listen to Pastel Blues on YouTube

Track-By-Track

Be My Husband

It opens with Be My Husband, featuring lyrics incidentally written by Simone’s own husband (and manager), Andrew Stroud. Slightly off-kilter, echoey, four-beat stamping and clapping, heightened by the tight splash of a high-hat, introduces a languid, yet driving pace. With purity of purpose, Simone’s voice drawls intensely into her opening repeated demand: Be my husband and I’ll be your wife / Love and honour you the rest of your life.

It suggests a woman pleading for the hand of her lover, committing to do all he would expect of a wife: If you want me to cook and sew / Outside of you there is no place to go. In return, she asks him only to curb his wandering eye: Stick the promise man you made me / That you stay away from Rosalie, yeah. This is presumably the intended (somewhat biased) perspective of the lyricist. But the way Simone sings it, with improvised shrieks dropping into deep, bassy groans, something quite different is suggested.

Nina Simone & Andrew Stroud, photographer unknown.

At this point, Simone was four years into an emotionally and physically abusive marriage with Stroud. Knowing this, it has far more resonance to picture her in a kitchen, staring down a boorish, unsatisfactory, and unsatisfying man; stomping on a linoleum floor, and throwing him a powerful, sacred ultimatum — give me what you promised. To imagine it otherwise is to imagine how Ed Sheeran might perform it — with the frivolousness of a millennial wedding on a sunny day in Surrey, and all the stamping, clapping vigour of a gaggle of giggling, inebriated aunts.

Furthermore, Be My Husband is effectively a re-worked chain gang song from the segregated south — a version of Rosie by the Inmates of Parchman Farm Penitentiary recorded in 1947 Mississippi by ethnomusicologist, Alan Lomax (and notoriously sampled by… well, well, well… hello again, David Guetta). The original lyrics ring out: Be my woman, gal, I’ll be your man… Stick to the promise girl that you made me / Won’t got married til’ I go free. Even aside from Simone’s interpretation, its genesis as a song of imprisonment immediately gives it a grimmer tone.

Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out

As it bows to track two, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out, the heavy opening of the album is extended. A blues standard written in 1923, it was popularised by Bessie Smith’s 1929 recording and re-introduced to a new audience by Eric Clapton, who performed it throughout his career. Sam Cooke, Otis Reading, Janis Joplin, Bobby Womack, John Lennon, Derek and the Dominos and Duane & Gregg Allman all put their spin on it, with wildly varying degrees of quality, duende and notoriety.

It begins deceptively upbeat: Well once I lived the life of a millionaire / spending my money I didn’t care / Taking my friends out for a mighty good time. Simone’s version is no different as she lightly pads major key piano chords, but what immediately sets her rendition apart is the tremble in her voice. It sounds like she is singing through tears, not least when the song reaches its sobering bridge: Nobody wants you / Nobody needs you.

In Simone’s case, the song became painfully prescient. Following her fall from grace within the music industry, she left for Barbados in 1970, where she had an affair with then Prime Minister, Errol Barrow. Her subsequent divorce from Stroud limited access to her income, which he, as her manager, controlled. Also, due to an arrest warrant for taxes she withheld in protest at the Vietnam War, Simone was unable to return to the US, so ended up first in Liberia, then living across Europe. With little money to live from and few relationships to speak of, for a time, she came to epitomise the song.

End of the Line

The first fully original song on the album, End of the Line is initially carried by another deception of positiveness, this time through its melody; romantic and light despite the lyrics: This is the end of the line / I’ve clearly read every sign / The way you glance at me / Indifferently / And take your hand from mine. Such is the flowing nostalgia of the tune, it is plausible to imagine the same song with all words made positive (e.g. The way you glance at me / So happily / And place your hand in mine).

Divisible into two parts, the first has the feel of Simone sipping a martini in a Rogers & Hammerstein bar (perhaps offering some musical theatrical hope of salvation). The second, however, gives way to resigned sorrow, over a steady, rumba beat. Aside from showcasing Simone’s prodigious classical piano-playing ability — albeit only through twinkling, floral runs — the richness of her vocal tone spills forth, smoothly and lusciously, particularly in the second half. While lyrically it lacks the forcefulness of other tracks, its simplicity opens the door to Simone’s abundant musicality.

Trouble in Mind

Written in 1924, Trouble in Mind is another blues standard, but given its title, after three tracks of despair, it surprisingly brings a degree of levity.

The original lyrics (as sung by Dinah Washington, Janis Joplin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ella Fitzgerald, Marianne Faithful, Johnny Cash and original recording artist Thelma La Vizzo) are far darker than this version. Typically, the singer, wrestling with the irrepressible demons of their psyche, contemplates suicide by train: I’m gonna lay my head / On some lonesome railroad line / Let the 2:19 train / Ease my troubled mind. Yet on Pastel Blues, it never gets that far.

While refrain of the song always concludes: I won’t be blue always / ‘Cause the sun’s gonna shine in my back door someday, Simone’s version leans more heavily on those lyrics than others’ versions; giving it a more hopeful perspective. She also dresses the music with a quicker, cheerier pace. Furthermore, instead of seeking the certainty and finality of a gruesome suicide, she resolves only that: I’m going down to the river / Gonna get me a rocking chair / If the Lord don’t help me / I’m gonna rock away from here.

Given she was be known to perform the full lyrics on other occasions, it is an interesting choice to uplift them on Pastel Blues. In terms of the album’s full narrative, however, it makes sense to offer a moment of optimism, keeping us on an undulating journey of emotion, rather than wallowing solely in melancholy.

Tell Me More and More and Then Some

The dynamic changes once again in Tell Me More and More and Then Some, as Simone hints towards her unapologetic, simmering, sexuality. Sex is known to have often enthralled her — as she wrote in her diary, “My attitude toward sex was that we should be having it all the time.”

Originally recorded in 1940 by Billie Holiday, Simone tweaks the lyrics to make the titular line more demanding, more desirous: I want more, more and then some. Accompanied by quivering, raunchy harmonica and clanging, insistent piano chords, Simone’s phrasing and emphasis draws lustfulness from the lyrics: You know how I love that stuff / Whisper from now on / To doomsday / But I never no no no no, ooh / I never, no I never, will get enough. It’s an erotic elaboration on Holiday’s already sultry interpretation, loading the request for whispered sweet nothings with a throbbing, sexual overtone.

Chilly Winds Don’t Blow

Chilly Winds Don’t Blow acts as a natural, also largely optimistic companion to Trouble in Mind, making Tell Me More and More and Then Some the bawdy, thick-cut meat between two, forward-looking slices of bread. That said, the song was previously released by Simone as single in 1959, as an even more upbeat spiritual, with denser orchestration and less of her signature vocal style.

On Pastel Blues, however, it is likely sung from a position of matured disappointment towards the unending hostility experienced by black Americans. With a sparser arrangement and greater vocal freedom, the new context is pointedly conveyed: There will be red roses round my door / I’m going where they’ll welcome me for sure, oh baby / Where the chilly winds, they don’t blow. Notably, as her piano rumbles, mimicking the sound of a rolling, cold wind, Simone also refers to her own maturity, as a woman. In this new version, she no longer wants to go where her father waits for her. Instead, it’s her daddy who will be waiting.

1968 © David Redfern

Ain’t No Use

Recorded in 1959 by Joe Williams and Count Basie, Ain’t No Use manifested as a break-up song. In that bright, brassy version, Williams croons at the opening: Ain’t no use of hanging round / Ain’t no use I put you down / There’s no love left / In my heart for you. In Simone’s rendition, the subject of the warning is much more ambiguous. When considered alongside Chilly Winds Don’t Blow and the tracks that follow, Simone instead implies a sense of exasperation, perhaps a desire to withdraw from broken American society, or the increasingly hostile music industry. She opens not with fallen love but accusation and fatigue: Ain’t no use baby / I’m leaving the scene / Ain’t no use baby / You’re too doggone mean / Yes I’m tired of paying dues / Having the blues / Hitting bad news.

To this point, Pastel Blues is a solid, often special, blues album, but here it really begins to soar; marking it apart. The underlying anguish of the blues is of course ingrained in the genre, but with Simone, her duende, fraught personal life, and civil rights activism, a dramatic narrative acceleration begins to emerge in the gap between Ain’t No Use and Strange Fruit (and again between Strange Fruit and Sinnerman). Without realising, tracks one to eight have been quietly coaxing you towards the edge of a cliff. The final two rip through you, forcing you over the edge before you can pull back. Amidst the silence between the songs, everything that preceded becomes re-contextualised with a deeper, darker tone. Embrace the fall.

Strange Fruit

The majesty of Strange Fruit is well documented — in 1999, Time named it the best song of the century. It was written by Abel Meeropol — a white, Jewish sometime Communist, and real-life MacGuffin, who intersects with numerous historically important features of 20th century America, but never appears at their forefront.

As a student and then teacher at Dewitt Clinton High School in the Bronx, he crossed paths with a young James Baldwin and numerous other luminaries of American culture. After seeing a photograph of a lynching, he felt compelled to write; originally penning the words as an anti-lynching poem. Published in a teacher’s union publication, it concisely described the horror he had seen through the sinister metaphor of a seemingly innocuous fruit tree. He later set it to music and presented it to Billie Holiday, who recorded her socially and sonically remarkable version in 1937. In 1945, he gave up teaching to become a full-time songwriter under the pen name Lewis Allen (the first names of his two, tragically stillborn sons), most famously writing Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning, patriotic short film and accompanying song, The House I Live in. Not only that, but in 1953 he adopted the two sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — a Jewish couple famously executed for spying on America for the Soviet Union.

Abel Meeropol with sons Michael and Robert Meeropol in 1954, via Robert Meeropol

As for the song itself, if Holiday’s recording is classical — a regretful, tender jazz lament — Simone’s is something more modern, more openly enraged; a cutting, resonant howl; transcending genre. The arrangement is minimal and masterful at once, with often dissonant piano chords treading like distressed steps through fallen leaves towards the horrifying tree at the agonising conclusion. It climaxes with a literal wail as the end nears: Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck / For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck / For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop / Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Its intensity lent itself perfectly to the sample on Kanye West’s scorching rebuke of destructive celebrity relationships, Blood On the Leaves.

Sinnerman

Simone’s Sinnerman is virtually unrecognisable from the first, folky version recorded by the Les Baxter Orchestra in 1956. Baxter adapted (read: plagiarised) the song from On the Judgement Day, by the Sensational Nightingales, which in turn takes elements from the 1924 No Hiding Place Down Here, by the Old South Quartette. But much like Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s similarly spiritual Hallelujah, Simone’s version remains, and will forever remain, the definitive iteration; the most copied, covered, celebrated and recognised; never bettered beyond that point.

As her Sinnerman evolves, it reveals the preceding short, eight tracks to have been little more than an (excellent) overture to this — the epic, operatic finale. At ten and a half minutes, it makes up nearly a third of the entire album. Brace yourself.

After the silent gap following Strange Fruit — another inhale between urgent roars — the first few bars are timeless, perhaps some of the most familiar notes ever recorded. Piano keys clamber over one another, skipping like a broken record. A foot taps out a light beat in the background. The percussion joins: a double-time, racing, hi-hat heart rate, yielding only to the occasional heavy, melodious thump of a double bass. Simone enters, Oh, Sinnerman, where you gonna run to? / Sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

1967 © Tony Gale

After Strange Fruit, the question takes on new meaning. Picture Simone in a deep purple Cadillac Deville n hot pursuit of a fleeing lynch mob; hood down, foot down, brow furrowed, engine roaring, steering on the edge of control. This toying with tumbling gives the song its energy. Like running down a steep slope, with the slightest misstep, all would be lost. As the beats impatiently trip over the piano notes, it feels like it’s constantly accelerating; never settling into a regimented pace.

After erupting into a minute-long call and response of: Power!, Sinnerman changes gear. A jangling, twanging guitar breathes heavily in contemplation of the next charge. The music fades, leaving only intimidating clapping, until the piano returns most wonderfully with a couple of pleasingly apparent (yet well-intended) mistakes; three or four notes missed, misplaced, or hesitated over as the tune searches again for its order among the tumult. When found, it resurges with renewed purpose; Simone audibly hyperventilating in anxious anticipation: So I run to the river, it was boiling / I run to the sea, it was boiling / All on that day. Judgement Day has arrived, and the devil is everywhere.

(Should this masterpiece really ever be used to sell hatchbacks?)

It ends with a pleading prayer, agitated piano chords and chaotic drums: Don’t you know, I need you Lord?, Simone cries. Whether the prayer is answered, we’ll never know, but as the percussion takes over and batters us into a final, frenzied submission, it feels too late.

Exhausted and exhilarated, Pastel Blues is at its end. But within it, Nina Simone’s duende forever persists.

#music #women #art #nina simone #album #race #civil rights #duende #1960s music #jazz #soul

4 notes · View notes

dillydedalus · 5 years

Text

what i read in july

THAT’S MORE LIKE IT aka i’m finally out of the (relative) reading slump for good & my bro james joyce was there

men explain things to me, rebecca solnit the original mansplaining essay is great, and still scarily relevant; the others in this collection (most on feminist issues) are also quite good; some aspects are a bit dated & problematic so be aware of that. 2.5/5

erschlagt die armen!, shumona sinha (tr. from french, not available in english) short but very impactful novella about a young french woman, originally from india, who works as an interpreter in the asylum system and becomes more & more broken by this system of inhumane bureaucracy and suffering, until she snaps and hits a migrant over the head with a wine bottle. full of alienation and misery and beautiful but disturbing language - the title translates to ‘beat the poor to death’ so like. yeah. 3.5/5

fire & blood: a history of the targaryen family I, george r r martin look, it’s a 700-page-long fake history book about a fictional ruling dynasty in a fictional world, and i’m just That Obsessed & Desperate about asoiaf (and i don’t even care about the targs That Much). anyway, now i know more about the targs than any ruling family from, you know, real history, which is like, whatever. this is pretty enjoyable if you are That Obsessed, although i will say that some bits are much better than others (there are some dry dull years even in everyone’s fav overly dramatic dragon-riding incest-loving family) and the misogyny really is. a lot. too much. way too much. BUT i did really like Good Best Queen Alysanne (her husband king joe harris is alright too i guess) and i found my new westerosi otp, cregan stark/aly blackwood, who both have Big Dick Energy off the fucking charts. 3.5/5 (+0.5 points for cregan and aly’s combined BDE)

the old drift, namwali serpell hugely ambitious sprawling postcolonial nation-building novel about zambia, told thru three generations of three families, as well as a chorus of mosquitoes (consistently the best & smartest parts). there is A LOT going on, in terms of characters, of plot points, of references to history (the zambian space programme) and literature (finally my knowledge of heart of darkness paid off) and thematically, and honestly it was a bit too much, a bit too tangled & fragmented & drifty, and in the end i probably admire this book more than i liked it, but serpell’s writing is incredibly smart and funny and full of electrical sparks 3.5/5

a severed head, iris murdoch the original love dodecahedron (not that i counted). iris murdoch is fucking WILD and i love her for it. this is a strange darkly funny little farce about some rich well-educated londoners and their bizarre & rather convoluted love lives. not as grandiosely wild as the sea the sea, but fun nevertheless. 3/5

midnight in chernobyl, adam higginbotham jumping on the hype bandwagon caused by the hbo series (very weird to call the current fascination with chernobyl a hype bandwagon but you know). interesting & well-written & accessible (tho the science is still totally beyond me) & gets you to care about the people involved. lots of human failure, lots of human greatness, set against the background of the almost eldritch threat of radioactivity (look up the elephant foot & see if you don’t get chills), and acute radiation syndrome which is THE MOST TERRIFYING THING ON EARTH . 3.5/5

normal people, sally rooney honestly this is incredibly engrossing & absorbing once you get used to how rooney completely ignores ‘show don’t tell’ (it works!), i pretty much read the whole thing in one slow workday (boss makes a dollar, i make a dime so i read books on my phone on company time, also i genuinely had nothing to do). i also think rooney is really good at precisely capturing the ~millenial experience in a way that feels very true, especially the transition from school to uni. BUT i really disliked the ending, the book never engages with the political themes it introduces (esp. class and gender) as deeply as it could and the bdsm stuff never really gets TIED UP LOL. so overall idk: 3.5/5

störfall: nachrichten eines tages, christa wolf quiet reflective undramatic little book narrated by a woman waiting to hear about the outcome of her brother’s brain surgery on the day of the catastrophe at chernobyl - throughout the day she puts down her thoughts about her brother and the events unfolding at chernobyl, as well as the double uncertainty she is trying to cope with. really interesting to read such an immediate reaction to chernobyl (the book came out less than a year after chernobyl). 2.5/5

the man in the high castle, philip k dick it was fine? quick & entertaining alternative history where the axis powers win the war, some interesting bits of worldbuilding (like the draining of the mediterranean which was apparently a real idea in the early 20th century?) but overall it’s just felt a bit disjointed & unsatisfying to me. 2.5/5

fugitive pieces, anne michaels very poetic & thoughtful novel about the holocaust, grief, remembrance & the difference between history and memory, intergenerational trauma, love, geology and the weather. i’m not sure how much this comes together as a novel, but it is absolutely beautifully written (the author is a poet as well) and very affective. 3.5/5

american innovations, rivka galchen short collection of bizarre & often funny short stories about neurotic women whose furniture flies away, or who grow an extra breast, or who are maybe too occupied with financial details. very vague & very precise at once, which seems to be the thing with these sort of collections. 3/5

fool’s assassin (fitz & the fool #1), robin hobb YAASS i’m back in the realm of the elderlings!!! i thought this was one of the weaker installments in the series - i still enjoyed it a lot, and Feelings were had, but it just doesn’t quite fit together pacing-wise & some of the characterisation struck me as off (can i get some nuance for shun & lant please?) and tbh fitz is at peak Selfcentred Dumbass Levels & it drove me up the fucking wall. molly, nettle & bee deserve better. still, completely HYPE for the rest of the trilogy. 3.5/5

JAMES JOYCE JULY

note: i decided not to read dubliners bc it’s my least fav of joyce’s major works & too bleak & repetitive for my mood right now AND while i planned not to reread finnegans wake bc……. it’s finnegans wake…. i kinda do want to read it now (but i also. really don’t.) so idk yet.

a portrait of the artist as a young man, james joyce y’all. i read this book at least once a year between the ages of 15 and 19, it’s beyond formative, it is burnt into my brain, and reading it now several years later it is still everything, soaring and searing (that searing clarity of truth, thanks burgess) and poetic and dirty, and stephen is baby, and a pretentious self-important little prick and i love him & i am him (or was him as only a pretentious self-important teenage girl reading joyce can be him - because this truly is a book that should be read in your late teens when you feel everything as intensely and world-endingly and severely as my boy stephen does and every new experience feels like the world changing). anyway i love this book & i love stephen dedalus, bird-like, hawk-like, knife-blade, aloof, alienated, severe and stern, a poet-priest-prophet if he could ever get over himself, baby baby baby. 5/5

exiles, james joyce well. there’s a reason joyce is known as a novelist. this is….. a failed experiment, maybe. a fairly boring play about an adulterous love-square and uh… love beyond morality and possession maybe??? about how much it would suck for joyce to return to ireland??? and tbh it’s not terribly interesting. 2/5

travesties, tom stoppard a wild funny irreverent & smart antic comedy inspired by the fact that during ww1, james joyce, lenin, and dadaist tristan tzara were all in neutral zurich, more or less simultaneously; they probably never met, but in this play they do, as dadaist poetry, socialist art critique, and a james joyce high on his own genius & in desperate need of some cash while writing ulysses, AND the importance of being earnest (joyce is putting on a production of it) all collide in the memories of henry carr, who played algernon & later sued joyce over money (tru facts). not my fav stoppard (that’s arcadia) but it’s funny & fizzy & smart & combines many many things that i love. 4/5

ulysses, james joyce look i’m not really going to tell y’all anything new about ulysses, but it really has everything, it’s warm & human(e) & cerebral & difficult & funny & sad & healing & i always get a lot out of it even tho there’s bits (a lot of them) i’ll never wrap my head around. ultimate affirmation of humanity or whatever. also stephen dedalus is baby. 5/5

dedalus, chris mccabe the fact that this book (sequel to ulysses about what stephen dedalus might have done the next day) exists and was published ON MY BIRTHDAY is proof that the universe loves me.

anyway this is very very good, very very clever, extremely good at stephen (less good at bloom but his parts are still good), engages w/ ulysses, portrait & hamlet (& others) very cleverly & does some cool meta and experimental shit. y’all it has stephen talking to a contemporary therapist about how he’s stuck in joyce’s text which is all about joyce & very little about whoever stephen is when he’s not joyce’s alter ego/affectionate but slightly amused look at younger self and ithaca is an interview w/ the author about how his relationship to his dad influenced his response to ulysses and I’M INTO IT. the oxen of the sun chapter replaces the whole ‘gestation of english prose’ w/ just slightly rewriting the first pages of about 10 novels published between ulysses and now & it does lolita w/ “bloom, thorn of stephen’s sleep, light in his eyes. his sire, his son’ and i lit. screamed. anyway i don’t want to give this 5 stars (yet) bc i think some of the experimental stuff ended up a bit gimmicky & didn’t add that much to the text but fuck. that’s my boy & i want to reread it right now. 4.5/5 ALSO it’s a crime no literary weirdo woman has written ‘a portrait of the artist’s sister’ about delia ‘dilly’ dedalus, shadow of stephen’s mind, quick far & daring, teaching herself french from a 3rd hand primer while her father drinks the nonexistent family fortune away and her older brother is getting drunk on a beach & starting fights w/ soldiers bc he’s a smartarse

#the books i read #long post

1 note · View note

yszarin · 6 years

Text

reminder that the HMS Sad About Tim is a good and steadfast ship, with free passage. as is the HMS Worried About Martin, and the HMS Sasha Is Fine Shut Up. we will sail far on our own tears. (see below for thoughts on Sneak Preview)

(the HMS For Fuck’s Sake Jon is also available for boarding, and the cost is only felt by those he cares about)

- part of me’s very pleased with this episode description, I’ve been wanting Tim’s backstory for ages, but on the other hand, this was one of the things I figured we’d get before he died and now it feels like there’s one less thing between Tim and death.

- god I hope Tim doesn’t die this episode.

- he squeak! which is adorable but also concerning, probably not good that Martin just loses full situational awareness during statements. anything could happen.

- oh, so this is bad.

- campaign for all of these characters to be locked in a room until they have shared All of the Information. why has no one told Tim about the Unknowing. Does the Admiral know more than Tim at this point?

- this is very very bad. yes, Martin, exactly! very bad indeed!

- I guess communication by tape is better than nothing?

- because of course Tim’s brother’s a model. don’t know what else I expected.

- gosh, Tim’s brother’s a poet, all these fancy words.

- why would you go alone. don’t go alone to places. I suppose it’s not a guarantee of safety in this podcast, considering Lost Johns’ Cave, but still.

- I changed my mind, I don’t actually want Tim’s backstory, please take it back.

- Tim, don’t go alone to places.

- and ah the fatalism in this is just so upsetting, Tim seems to be applying the way he’s trapped in the Institute to the whole of his life and it’s Not Nice. His watching here could be taken as a decision that led him to Beholding or just a sign that it was already there, or just that it wanted something Beheld like with the rest of the statement-givers.

- this is some wonderfully upsetting decor. I wonder if it’s some sort of Unknowing rehearsal, given the title? I suppose these things do have to be practiced.

- oh Tim. hugs for Tim. assertions for Tim that there was nothing he could have done and that he’s not a coward. mostly hugs though. come on Martin. I’ve been headcanoning Martin as great at hugs since I started listening and it’d be nice to have confirmation one way or the other (please validate me!) before everyone dies or goes otherwise wrong.

- while I’m enjoying this plot-based communication (I wonder if we’ll see Tim aligning himself with Jon a bit more now there’s a common enemy, or if Tim’ll just be going after the Circus alone? I mean the first one would require these people to behave logically so it’s probably out), and it’s good that things are being talked about, please hug Tim.

- I suppose “Tim wasn’t there to tell” is valid, but for an entity based on knowledge (so far as we can tell) Beholding seems very into learning only from experience or being told in very specific weird ways.

- go away Elias they were talking it was great

- no, Martin don’t go! I mean I guess “standing up to Elias” is something he’ll need to work on but it seems like he tried more with trying not to get Melanie involved. hope that’s not a sign of him becoming more Beholding-ed? presumably not, as Gertrude and Jon both seem perfectly able to go off and do things that Elias doesn’t want, but if there is a way to worry about Martin, I will worry it.

- I was really hoping Tim might be feeling a bit better after giving his statement, as it seems like they often have that effect? maybe he was? but now Elias has come in and everything’s dreadful. low-key feel like we might have eventually got a hug or at least an attempt at one if he hadn’t. I’m going to blame our lack of canon hug solely on Elias. maybe Martin will find Tim afterwards?

- damnit Tim please don’t sass Elias. Tim, please don’t challenge Elias to kill you. Tim, please. Tim.

- for a second there I thought Elias would threaten to kill someone else so small mercies I suppose? and Tim didn’t die this episode despite what seemed a fairly good attempt so hooray?

- and there goes my headcanon/quiet hope that someone was talking to and trying to help Tim and we just weren’t hearing about it. maybe in future?

- the backstories in this thing are really Something, I expect next we’re going to hear that Elias was a kitten tragically warped by the desire to look at even more things with derision and then I’ll have to have Elias Feelings which I don’t want. Is Martin’s tragic enough yet? Was Sasha the only person there who was Just Interested?

- I expect after this we’ll see a bit of a change in Tim’s attitudes and behaviour, though I’m really not sure it’s going to be for the best (in an ideal world he’d reach out to Jon but.) and I am no less worried about him? worry for the Archival Assistants is a Vast entity.

#the magnus archives #archivalhugs2k18

24 notes · View notes

hiphopscriptures · 3 years

Text

Fresh Artist Fridays: The Authentic

PRESSURE is the song you play when you need to feel heard by your music. The Authentic’s inspiring lyrics punch you in the gut and leave you with a feeling of motivation and determination. The lyrics grab your attention from the beginning and refuse to let you go for the duration of the song. “I see today standing in my way. Trouble’s always present so I get down on my knees and pray.” The song is a candid admission of the stress we feel just trying to get through life. The Authentic raps about how he knows life won’t be easy, but he will do everything he can to provide for his family and take care of himself. PRESSURE tackles the emotions that come with feeling adversity and difficulty perfectly. It’s open about how hard it can be to feel depended on, but also makes it clear that nothing will stand in The Authentic’s way. Its music video is equally as inspiring, showing ordinary people go through life struggling but determined to make it. Check out PRESSURE, along with the rest of the songs off of The Authentic’s 2020 project, Politics, War & Religion - Mixtape Series Volume One.

The Authentic Bio

In a day and time when music is strictly about glamour and entertainment, The Authentic stands as one of the last true MC’s focused on reality lyrics, a crazy flow, a one of a kind style and the real essence of Hip Hop. With so many replicas in the industry, The Authentic’s pure passion for the music allows him to stand in a league of his own and truly fits the definition of his title. With a flow that places him in a league of his own and a sincere love for his craft, The Authentic doesn’t hold back; addressing social issues and taking direct aim at whack rappers. Through his career, The Authentic has fully utilized his diverse experiences in life to develop a strong versatile catalog; with motivational tracks that depict the streets reality like hit single “Shining Star”, up-tempo Hip Hop anthems like “Turn It Up”, and party bangers like “Oh My God”. With over 10 solid years ripping through the underground, hundreds of performances under his belt, radio appearances and five solid mixtapes with thousands of units moved; The Authentic has firmly secured his slot in the game. Working hard to build his reputation and master the craft of being an MC (Master of Ceremony), he has performed all over the country, from New York City (Nuyorican Poets Café, Revolution Bookstore), Philadelphia (The Trocadero, Love Park, and Wells Fargo Center), North Carolina (NC State University, Dorton Arena), Las Vegas (Planet Hollywood and The Bunkhouse) and many more. His diligence, determination and natural raw talent has earned him respect from some of the most reputable figures in the game, including: DJ Rashaun, DJ Scratch of The Roots Crew, DJ Touchtone, DJ NoPhrillz and has landed him on stages with superstars such as, KRS ONE, Big Daddy Kane, Naughty By Nature, Jadakiss, Styles P, Musiq Soulchild and more. With his sound, his resume and pure passion for the culture, The Authentic truly represents a lost voice in Hip Hop. In addition to being in a league of his own when it comes to lyrical content and experience; The Authentic separates himself from the pack by being more than just another artist. Over the years, he has dedicated a majority of his time off the stage to building his community and standing as a voice on various social issues. In 2011, The Authentic created an annual event called “The Authentic Minds College Fair Tour”, which hosted over 50 colleges, guest speakers and live performances held at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center located in North Philadelphia. This College Fair alone generated a wave of media buzz and lead to the interest of multiple sponsors. By establishing himself on the corporate side, The Authentic has created multiple opportunities to perform and organize entertainment events for companies and organizations. The Authentic has also served as a Community Relations Director and spokesman for various Non Profits and local movements. To him, Hip Hop is a way of life and a culture and he feels that the mic should be utilized to depict real life and to open people’s minds to a reality that most people do not understand. The Authentic’s love for Hip Hop started in the 80’s at a very early age, listening to legends such as RUN DMC, KRS ONE, LL Cool J, and witnessing local break dancing competitions and DJ battles. He became fascinated with the expressions of the culture in every aspect and embodied being a key figure to continue the movement. While growing up in South Jersey, he witnessed his mother struggle to pay the bills and embraced all of the usual elements of the hood; violence, drugs and poverty. As he adapted to his environment, he gravitated to the mic to speak on exactly what he experienced first hand and continues to do so. The Authentic hit the scene hard in the late 90’s, touring the Northeast with Wyclef Jean’s award winning group City High. Shortly after the tour, The Authentic’s group, at the time, signed a joint venture deal with a local independent label and No Limit records, which eventually fell through. Following the fallout of the deal, he quickly bounced back rocking stages with Lil’ Kim, Tracey Lee, Jackal the Bear, and landed a slot on the radio with Legendary DJ Jay Ski; all before graduating high school. By the grace of GOD, The Authentic headed to Raleigh, NC after high school to attend college and to pursue new music opportunities. With so many colleges in the area and a solid underground scene in NC, The Authentic’s career excelled all while trying to balance school work, hustling to pay tuition and his passion for Hip Hop. The Authentic hit the ground running by tearing down college talent shows and was eventually booked to open for DJ Clue, Jadakiss, Petey Pablo, Styles P and D.C., go-go music legends Backyard Band. In early 2000 The Authentic was selected to headline the CIAA Championship Game at Dorton Arena, as well as the CIAA Hip Hop Hoops Tour, which hit colleges through MD, VA and NC, including NC Central, VA State and Winston-Salem State College. This tour led to him landing a deal with an affiliate label of the NBC television network. The Authentic teamed up with Raleigh’s illest underground MC “Bubsy” to form a group called “Lock n Load”, which dropped two hit singles on the “One Hot Minute Compilation”, a collaborative effort by NC’s top artists from around the state. Both singles released received hundreds of spins from Richmond, VA to Raleigh, NC to Florence, SC. Following graduation from St. Augustine’s College with a Public Relations degree, The Authentic released his first underground project “Vision of Hope” which sold over 500 units all while teaching elementary school and creating youth outlet programs in the poverty stricken city of Henderson, NC. After putting in work in NC, The Authentic headed back home to Jersey embracing his degree, but sucked back into the traps of the hood. He continued making mixtape appearances and rocking shows all through the tri-state. Living in Trenton during one of the worst stretches of gang violence in the state’s history prompted the release of “The Line of Fire Mixtape”. It became the theme music, depicting the reality and moved over 1,500 copies on the street and in local stores. While “The Authentic’s” reputation was growing in the area, he suffered the lost of his cousin, best friend and roommate, Tone; who was shot in the back twice a few hundred yards from their home, while The Authentic was rocking his first show in NYC. After the lost of his cousin, he felt strongly about turning further away from the streets and using his voice more as a tool for awareness of the realities that the inner city youth face. From that point, he embraced his cousin’s last conversation with him, in which he reminded The Authentic that his role is to be “The Public Relations of the hood”. Following The Authentic’s explosion on the scene in Jersey, he relocated to Philadelphia to build his brand in the nation’s 5th largest city. In no time he began smashing open mics and local shows in every section of the city earning him spins and respect amongst the areas top DJ’s, such as DJ NoPhrillz, DJ Touchtone, DJ Jay Ski and DJ GregNitty. The Authentic blazed through the city with his mixtape release “Reality of it All”, followed by “Real Recognize Real” with hit single “Turn It Up”, which gained him national attention getting radio spins on FM stations from New York City, Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Philly’s 100.3 The Beat. The national buzz set the tone for The Authentic’s next mixtape “Righteous Kill Mixtape Vol. 1”, packed with versatile hits and moved 5,000 units in the street with no budget. With things in motion, he continued to make appearances all through the city from Unity Day with Chaka Khan, Philly Fest with Mos Def and Musiq, The Old Skool Jam with KRS ONE and Roxanne Shante, The Rotunda, The Trocadero, and XO Lounge with Philly Swain and Reed Dollars. He headlined Philadelphia Schools Stop the Violence Tour, West Philly Day, Nicetown Day, South Philly Day and Mantua Day with Naughty by Nature. The Authentic also showed up heavy on the radar with a feature on well known Gunz n’ Butter productions DJ J-Scrilla compilation “Culture of Honor” featuring Cassidy, DipSet, Tek and Reef The Lost Cauze.

Check out his music through the links above and stay connected with The Authentic through his socials to make sure you never miss new music. Remember to follow Hip Hop Scriptures to stay updated on the latest Fresh Artist Friday.

STAY CONNECTED WITH THE AUTHENTIC ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

Facebook - Instagram - Twitter - YouTube - www.theauthentic.bandcamp.com

STAY CONNECTED WITH HIP HOP SCRIPTURES ON SOCIAL MEDIA:

#fresh artist fridays #the authentic #new hip hop #new music #politicswarandreligionmixtape

0 notes

analogscum · 6 years

Text

HELLS ANGELS ON WHEELS (1967, d. Richard Rush)

Way back in 1966, before he was reduced to a Johnny Depp caricature and the personal hero of that one libertarian douchebag in your college Philosophy 101 class, Hunter S. Thompson burst onto the literary scene with his debut book, Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. Expanded from a 1965 article for The Nation, Hell’s Angels introduced America to not only the Doctor’s freewheeling, lysergic brand of prose, but this new underground culture of the motorcycle gang. No longer the leather-bound toughs of The Wild Ones, these bikers were hairier, freakier, and ten times more drugged up. They didn’t even bother to ask what you had for them to rebel against, they let their chains to the talkin’, maaaaaaan.

Hells Angels on Wheels roared into movie theaters the following year, when the Summer of Love had cooled down into the Winter of…I guess still Love? I dunno. I imagine the film must’ve been very shocking in its day and age, but for today’s viewer, Hells Angels on Wheels is notable for other reasons, namely its nascency. It represents ground zero for an entire sub-genre which played a major part in cementing the explosion of creativity that was American cinema in the 1970s, and provided a launching pad for a number of players who would go on to become indispensable cornerstones of that scene. But, before they could do that, they had to shoot a bunch of establishing shots of bikes parking in places.

In the spirit of the Peace movement, why don’t we be generous and describe the narrative structure of Hells Angels on Wheels as…episodic? Yeah, that’s the ticket! Basically every scene in the movie follows this structure: the Hells Angels show up somewhere and park their bikes for like five minutes, go into a place where everyone hates them, get into a fight with the people who hate them, then leave when either they kill someone or the cops show up. That’s it. That’s the whole movie. The audience’s surrogate is a young man named Poet, who quits his job at a gas station when a customer is a total jerk to him. Then his bike gets sideswiped by one of the Angels, who has, shall we say, questionable facial hair. Either this guy’s mustache just grows weird, or they did a terrible makeup job on him, anyway, you be the judge:

So Poet’s headlight is damaged, and he proceeds to start a fight with the Angel with the questionable facial hair. Now, instead of just beating him to death with some wrenches, the lead Angel, Buddy, appreciates Poet’s ability to scrap. They all hang out for awhile. They get into a fight in a bar with a rival biker gang. They get into a fight at a carnival with some sailors. Then they all go back to a swingin’ pad full of groovy wall decor and have a drug orgy for what feels like nine hours. At one point, a painter who looks and talks suspiciously like Hunter S. Thompson — floppy hat, sunglasses, gruff mumble — begins doing body paint on all the women, which takes up roughly six hours of this nine hour scene. But most importantly, Poet falls for Shrill, one of the biker mamas who he can tell is a little too smart to be around this scene, because so is he. Just one problem: Shrill is Buddy’s woman. I’m sure this won’t lead to awkward, poorly choreographed violence at all!

Speaking of, kudos to the filmmakers for going for realism; there’s a lot of handheld camerawork, plenty of Nouvelle Vague-influenced jump cuts, and the film seems to feature quite a few actual Hells Angels. In fact, Sonny Barger, the president of the Angels’ Oakland chapter, gets his own title card in the opening credits, even though he appears on camera for less than two seconds. Surely this title was properly earned, and not the result of any threats against studio people with switchblades. However, we’re talking about an era where filmmakers still hadn’t quite figured out how to properly choreograph a fight scene, so every scuffle still kinda looks like drunken acrobatics. And the death scenes are even worse. Here’s a short list of how people die in this movie: they’re awkwardly knocked down and punched once; their car is run off the road but otherwise totally unharmed; and their bike runs into a two by four, slowly tilts over, and catches on fire for no discernible reason. It’s a shame that the one thing that reads as hokey in a movie dedicated to portraying the reality of this violent lifestyle is, well, the violence.

Eventually Poet is made a “prospect” by Buddy, and the whole gang hits the road. One of the bikers and his woman get married at a Catholic Church in Nevada. There are more fights with people who don’t like them. In once scene a biker drives his bike up a real tall hill for awhile. One biker gets arrested on a murder beef, but the gang busts him loose less than a minute later, because stakes or tension is for squares, I guess. By far the most interesting part of this movie is watching the relationship between Poet and Shrill develop, and how that begins to threaten Buddy. These two are joined together by their discontent: they both want something outside of the ordinary from life, but are paralyzed by their self-destructive tendencies. This is especially true of Shrill, who isn’t happy unless she is causing unhappiness all around her, which leads her to play Poet and Buddy off of one another, until it all blows up in a powerful final confrontation that is unfortunately capped off by a truly stupid coda that never should’ve happened.

Hells Angels on Wheels was directed by a gentleman named Richard Rush. Though he wouldn’t be as prolific after the sixties, and hasn’t directed a feature film since 1994’s Color of Night (speaking of truly stupid codas that never should’ve happened), this film helped propel him to greater artistic heights: 1970’s Getting Straight was a critical darling and called the “best American film of the decade” by none other than Ingmar Bergman; 1974’s Freebie and the Bean was a box office smash and more or less invented the buddy cop movie; and 1980’s The Stunt Man earned him two Oscar nominations. Richard Rush has kinda been forgotten these days, but, I mean, François Truffaut called this guy his favorite American director. Have YOU ever been François Truffaut’s favorite anything? I doubt it, he’s been dead since 1984, genius.

Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that the cinematography on Hells Angels on Wheels was credited to one “Leslie Kovacs.” If you’re a hopeless dork like me, you probably whispered to yourself, “I bet that’s Lázló Kovacs.” Well, fellow hopeless dork, we were both right: this was one of Kovacs’s first American feature jobs, after shooting commercials and nature documentaries for much of the early sixties. He continued to collaborate with Rush throughout the seventies, as well as lensing classic films by the likes of Peter Bogdanovich, Bob Rafelson, Martin Scorsese, Dennis Hopper, and Norman Jewison. Shockingly, he never won an Oscar, but odds are if you paint a mental picture of American cinema in the seventies, you’re imagining an image shot by Lázló Kovacs.

That finally brings us to Poet, who was played by a young upstart named Jack Nicholson. Is it even necessary to point out that he’s the best actor in the film? Well, he is. The character is a bit underwritten, but he makes the most out of it. Nicholson can do more with a smile or a glance than other actors in the film attempt with an entire monologue. Best of all, he still hadn’t gone full on bug-eyed, jive talkin’, scenery chewin’, Lakers court side Jaaaaaaaack yet. There’s a vulnerable, wounded quality to his acting here that is incredibly compelling, I would argue that he perfected it in Five Easy Pieces, one of yours truly’s favorite films of all time, before moving on to the more ostentatious work that would net him 3 Oscars and turn him into a tabloid playboy.

Hells Angels on Wheels would help establish the counterculture motorcycle gang as a cinematic force to be reckoned with, at least on the drive-in circuit. More quick and dirty films of that ilk followed in its wake, such as The Wild Angels, Born Losers, and Hells Angels ’69, before one such film broke on through to the other side: an acid-soaked exploration that pitted the battle between the bikers and normal society as the struggle for the very soul of America in the Vietnam age. Oh, and they brought Kovacs and Nicholson along too. Obviously I’m talking about Otto Preminger’s Skidoo.

Nah, just kidding, I’m talking about Easy Rider. Released in 1969, the film proved to be the flashpoint for the most artistically fertile decade in the history of American cinema. And to think, it all may not have happened if it wasn’t for a little movie that’s mostly establishing shots of bikes being parked.

youtube

#ANALOG SCUM #analogscum #VHS #vhsishappiness #bekindrewind #tapehead #tapeheads #bikers #hells angels #genre #exploitation #exploitationfilm #hellsangelsonwheels #1967 #jack nicholson #lazlo kovacs #richard rush #new american cinema

4 notes · View notes

pamphletstoinspire · 7 years

Photo

Angry with God

My older sister Patricia died of spina bifida before I was born. My younger sister Linda died of spina bifida when I was 3. Given that I was raised in a traditional, stoic, Irish-Catholic family, my sisters and their deaths were never talked about. In fact, I didn’t even know they existed until I was 5 and found their names in our family Bible. “Who are these people?” I asked my mother.

“They are your sisters”—that was all she said.

As I grew, I thought about them a lot. Eventually, I began to ask my mother why God did this to our family. She said simply that some crosses were heavier to carry than others. Somehow that answer and the related resignation didn’t work for me. And so I began to become angry. Specifically, I began to become angry with God.

For most of my youth, I felt this anger was wrong, sinful. Yet it didn’t go away. I encountered more and more suffering that did not make sense. A friend lost both his parents by the eighth grade. A very good priest dropped dead of a heart attack. The brother of a friend died in Vietnam.

As I began my work as a psychologist, I would touch on spiritual matters with my clients. I found that I was not alone in my anger. Worse, I met people whose explanations for tragedy were heartbreaking.

One woman, for example, believed that her prayers for a dying daughter did not work because her prayers were “not worthy of God’s attention.” Even my own father, as he dealt with a series of strokes, told me they were “punishment for my sins.” As I heard such struggles, I felt more and more that, because of anger, I was bound to grow away from my faith. Then I read the Book of Job.

Job: Not Merely Silent Suffering

Given that the Catholicism of my youth did not include a great deal of biblical study, I knew very little about Job other than the phrase “the patience of Job.” When I read this marvelous book, I realized among other things that Job was hardly patient. In fact, like me, he was angry!

The story of Job begins with a bet. Satan is arguing with God, saying that faith is easy when everything is going well in one’s life, but that people tend to lose that faith when times are tough. He then brings up Job, pointing out that Job has great faith but is also very comfortable and successful. But suppose, suggests Satan, that Job falls on hard times: Will he then be so faithful? God gives Satan permission to take away everything of Job’s but not to harm him. Satan does this, but Job holds on to his faith. So Satan ups the ante by asking God to let him harm Job directly.

And so Job ends up homeless, penniless, and afflicted with horrible skin diseases. He begins to seek an explanation from God. In fact, Job demands an explanation!

Job’s friends show up and offer standard explanations for his troubles. “You must have sinned,” suggests one. “You haven’t prayed hard enough,” says another. And yet Job continues his outcry, ultimately demanding that God show up and explain himself.

And God shows up! Granted, God tends to put Job in his place and never really answers Job’s “Why?” question. But the important points are that God shows up and that he never punishes Job for his outcry.

But Why, Lord?

I think the Book of Job is there to encourage us to embrace our outcries, not suppress them; and to struggle with the “Why?” question, not dismiss it. And so, somewhat timidly, I began to allow myself that anger.

It soon became clear to me that I needed to explore my anger at several levels. The most immediate level was the “Why?” question that was a large part of my youth. As I began to read, I found out that the “Why?” question has in fact given rise to a specific area of theological study called theodicy. Specifically, theodicy examines the issue of how an all-good, all-loving God can permit evil.

As I explored my anger, I came across the book May I Hate God? by Pierre Wolff. Despite its provocative title, this is a very gentle-spirited book that reminds us that God is a loving parent; and that loving parents, upon learning that their child is angry with them, want to hear about the anger—not necessarily condone it, but hear about it. This opened up to me the awareness that, when I am angry with God, my tendency is to express that anger in the same way I do at a human level. I shut down and use the “silent treatment.”

Novelist Joseph Heller put it another way in his novel God Knows. King David is reflecting on whether he is angry with God and concludes, “I’m not angry with God. We’re just not speaking to one another.” So it was with me and the God of my understanding.

In any case, Wolff’s book helped me to accept my anger. But I still struggled with the “Why?” question. Other thinkers offered helpful insights. Viktor Frankl did not answer this question, but he observed that, while we don’t always have a choice over what happens to us, we always have a choice regarding how we face it. Similarly, Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his well-regarded When Bad Things Happen to Good People, offered what for me was a novel idea—that perhaps God wasn’t responsible for some of the bad things that happened to us.

At first, Kushner’s notion was comforting. Maybe God wasn’t behind my sisters’ illnesses or children with cancer or senseless random shootings. Maybe those things just happened. Somehow that thought made me fear God less. Yet the thought that perhaps God wasn’t behind all bad things that happened created another question articulated by Annie Dillard, who wrote in For the Time Being, “If God does not cause everything that happens, does God cause anything that happens? Is God completely out of the loop?”

My anger at God brought me to wrestle with some important issues. It challenged me to reexamine my image of God. Did I see God as punitive, misreading the Old Testament? Did I see him as loving, as in many New Testament stories? Did I see him as uninvolved, caring for the big picture and leaving the details to us, as the Oh, God! films suggest?

My anger also brought me face-to-face with my struggles about prayer. Does God answer prayers? Clearly not all prayers. It’s been said that there are many unanswered prayers at deathbeds. If God doesn’t answer all prayers, to follow Dillard, does he answer any prayers?

These struggles have been productive, prodding me toward a more mature understanding of God, as well as a more clear appreciation for prayer. But I still come face-to-face with my anger.

A Personal Encounter with God

Over the past few years, I have read the entire Bible three times. It has been a truly enlightening experience. I saw clearly that Job wasn’t the only one to argue with God. Abraham did it; Moses did it; even Jesus did it! I was in good company.

I saw, too, that David’s Psalms were at times outcries. Within the poetry, one can hear the oppressed poet yelling out to God, “Do something!”

I’ve learned from my many clients who sit and try to understand tragedies in their lives. In asking these great teachers, “Are you angry with God?” I’ve heard many instructive answers. One woman wrestling with a lifethreatening illness said, “Of course I’m angry with God! But he’s God. He can take it!” Another very spiritual young woman observed, “No, I’m not angry. But I sure would like to have a peek at his operations manual.”

Harold Kushner recently published a piece on the Book of Job titled The Book of Job: When Bad Things Happened to a Good Person. It is a literate and scholarly book that offered me a new note of comfort. Kushner suggests that Job is comforted and consoled not so much by God’s explanation but by the encounter itself. Job deeply experienced God’s presence and took comfort in that meaningful experience. I found a note of personal truth in this thought. I realized that, yes, I’ve had meaningful encounters with God in nature or in the world of great art or in the sound of my grandchildren’s laughter.

But I realized that I have also encountered God in my anger in a way that has been profound. As I voice that anger, I feel God in a manner as profound as, albeit different from, my experience of God in nature.

The story of this journey of anger has a more recent turn to it, one with which I am still dealing. I recently saw an episode of The West Wing, a program from the early 2000s starring Martin Sheen as a fictional president. Prior to this episode, the president had lost a much-loved secretary in a senseless car accident. After the funeral, he stands alone in the National Cathedral and unleashes an anger that shocked me. As an example, his character refers to God as a “vengeful thug.”

I felt I’d long validated the importance of anger in my relationship with God, yet I found myself uncomfortable with the intensity of President Bartlett’s anger. But, upon reflection, I understood it. My anger is more than annoyance or disappointment—at times it is rage. Yet, out of fear, I withhold that rage and instead, like David in Heller’s novel, stop talking to my God or at least temper my feelings. Yet, when I allow myself to approach that rage, I find God waiting for me.

And so I come face-to-face with the God of my understanding. Is that God a vengeful parent who will not tolerate my anger and will punish me for speaking up? Such was the God of my youth. Or is the God of my understanding a loving God willing to wrestle with me, willing to accept my vented rage in the name of open, ongoing dialogue and genuine encounter? And do I have the courage to fully embrace this understanding of God and remain in dialogue in the midst of my rage?

The great Jewish scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel once wrote, “God stands in a passionate relationship with Man.” Anyone who has lived in a longterm, passionate relationship learns that passion is a package deal. You can’t have the joy and ecstasy unless you also accept and embrace the anger and alienation. I’ve dealt with several couples who say they don’t fight. But they are in my office because their relationship is stagnant. Without the struggle, there is no passionate intimacy.

The Path of Relationship

I realize at this point that, for me to have a joyful, peaceful, vibrant relationship with the God of my understanding, I must also embrace the rage. Not just annoyance, but rage!

And so, as I struggle, I return to reflect on my mother’s faith in the face of tragedy. I see that her faith was not some passive, shoulder-shrugging, “Oh well, it could be worse” type of faith. Throughout her life, she believed not only in the power of prayer but also in the persistence of that prayer. Like the woman in the parable seeking justice, she would not quietly plead or go away. Rather, she would “storm heaven with prayers.” Nor did she let tragic loss engender cynicism: on her deathbed and with absolute certainty and joyful anticipation, she said, “I’m going to see my girls.”

And yet I know my path is one of wrestling and arguing. It occurs to me that perhaps within the mystical body of Christ, we both play a part. People like my mother indeed inspire me to not lose hope and to continue to believe that understanding God’s mysterious way is possible.

But perhaps people like me—the questioners, the wrestlers—help others not to lapse into passive, depressed resignation. Perhaps in encouraging others to “fight back,” we help them experience real encounters with God. Perhaps we wrestlers help others to hope that our pain and anguish do matter. And perhaps together we can link arms and sing those words of Job offered not as an answer but in hopeful expectation: “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!”

Richard B. Patterson, Phd, is a clinical psychologist and freelance writer from El Paso, Texas.

#angry with god

3 notes · View notes

selfpublishingnews · 7 years

Link

This is a useful article from publishing platform Ingram Spark.

When it comes to selling your book the bottom line is – well, the bottom line. Let's face it—the more book sales the better. So how do you get your self-published book into the hands of as many readers as possible? There are some elements of your book sales strategy that can make a big difference when it comes to how well your book sells, and the biggest of those is your book metadata.

A crucial element of your book marketing strategy needs to be making your book easy to discover online. You make this happen with good book metadata descriptions. You don't have to include all of the following elements, but consider incorporating those that are applicable to your book and your potential audience, because these are the metadata components that impact book sales most.

Book Genres, Topics, and Themes

Use titles and subtitles that help describe what your book is about. Make sure your metadata corresponds with the appropriate topics and themes of your book.

Important People and Brands

This includes popular historical characters who are gaining or regaining notoriety, however, they must be directly-related to your book in order for you to include them. For instance, it's probably no coincidence that an updated biography of the poet Robert Lowell appeared on the market simultaneously with one of his fellow poets and love interests Elizabeth Bishop. If the subject matter of your book relates to well-known people or institutions, use that in your metadata.

Locations and Time Periods

Think about where and when your story is being told. If your book is set against the back drop of the civil rights era, you can improve online discovery of your book by referencing Martin Luther King or the '60s. Include historical events, times, and settings in your metadata description.

Special Features and Selling Points Specific to an Edition or Format

A new foreword in your book—perhaps by a currently notable professional—can have an impact on book sales. You might also consider including selling points such as color illustrations, exclusive book cover design, and/or a unique binding. Remember to include these special features in your book metadata.

Contributors' Other Titles and Awards

Any contributor to your book brings their own marketing success to yours. Your book sales can be boosted by a foreword or even a blurb written by an award-winning or currently-popular author. Conversely, a contributor whose own work is completely unrelated to yours might not have the positive impact you were hoping for.

Audience or Age-Appropriateness

Naturally your book sales will be affected by whether your marketing reaches the right audience. Including or withholding age or grade-level recommendations in your book metadata will have an effect on how well your book reaches its intended audience. Recommendations and/or blurbs from comparable authors can increase your sales. Consider your intended audience's behaviors, consumer habits, demography, and desires when writing your metadata descriptions.

Adjacent People, Organizations, and Experience

Your metadata might help boost your book's online discovery if you include personal and professional connections. Your associations with particular organizations—academic and otherwise—are also components that affect book sales. Consider your relationships, affiliations, experiences, and background. Neuroscientist Lisa Genova became a bestselling author after writing a novel based on a character suffering from a neurological condition. Her professional experience in the field had a positive impact on book sales as her noted affiliations naturally attracted readers within the brain-science community.

Bestseller History

If your book becomes highly acclaimed, especially well-received, or even granted an award after publication, add this to your metadata after publication. The phrase "New York Times Bestseller" can add exponential success to your book sales by attracting readers who regularly search for the list online.

There are myriad factors that impact the sales of any particular book, and if you are self-publishing your book you deserve all the help you can get. Perhaps you're not writing a book yourself but rather assisting someone else with the publication of theirs. IngramSpark offers tools of the trade and resources like the tips listed here that can help you create a winning book marketing strategy.

#book sales #publishing #book publishing #self publishing #self-publishing #self publish #self published #indie authors #hybrid authors #indie publishing

9 notes · View notes

sinceileftyoublog · 4 years

Text

Susanna Interview: Pure Piano Poems

Photo by Martin Rustad Johansen

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Over the past couple years, medieval painter Hieronymous Bosch and 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire have intersected in the vision of prolific Norwegian vocalist and composer Susanna Wallumrød, who has now released two separate records inspired by the works of both. But whereas last year she interpreted the strange and majestic Bosch works with a band, she gives Baudelaire’s work more space to breathe. With just her voice and a piano, the aptly titled Baudelaire & Piano, out this past Friday digitally and on vinyl, CD, and cassette via her own label SusannaSonata, is a collection of poems from Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil (as translated by Anthony Mortimer), delivered by Susanna in song, set to lilting, steady, solemn piano riffs. But don’t let the starkness and minimalism of the arrangements fool you--with it comes the potential to add on. Playing in Norway, who has opened up to allow live performance, Susanna pre-premiered the songs at this month’s Punkt festival in Kristiansand and last night in Oslo, with just voice and piano. But later this month, at the Henie Onstad Art Center in Bærum, she’s presenting a more fleshed-out experience. Susanna will be joined by tape recorder composer Stina Moltu on commission for this unique performance, which will also include costume design and scenography from Thale Kvam Olsen, lighting design by Gard Gitlestad, sound design by Ingar Hunskaar, video from Pekka Stokke, and further photography and video material from Carsten Aniksdal. It’s the ultimate manifestation of these works, and one that potentially previews more performances and songs to come.

I spoke with Susanna over Skype earlier this summer about her creative approach to her recent records, how she’s adapting Baudelaire & Piano to the stage, and her concerns about the livelihood of artists due to COVID-19, even in a comparatively progressive country. Read our conversation below.

Since I Left You: The past two records were inspired by specific figures. Did you take a different approach responding to the written word and including the subject’s written word as opposed to responding to painting?

Susanna: Yes, even though it’s kind of similar, it feels like it’s much more locked down when I use someone else’s words. It feels more similar to maybe doing interpretations of other people’s songs, almost. There are parts of it that I haven’t made myself.

SILY: How long had this album been in the works?

Susanna: For some time now. I think I wrote the first song in 2017. It just started out with a few songs. I liked them so much I wanted to make it a new project.

SILY: Chronologically, you had the previous album last year and this one this year. Was that just a coincidence, or is this part of a larger trend of works you’re doing?

Susanna: I’m not sure right now, but I think it’s some kind of result of getting some commissioned projects around 2016-17. I sort of felt like, “Okay, I can really go in a different direction now.” To see if I find something else that I can write about or make music to. The album that came out last year was written in 2016, and about a few months later, I started to write this Baudelaire thing. It feels like there are several things happening in a more creative place.

SILY: Was this one a commissioned work as well?

Susanna: Not specifically, but it has turned out to be that. I’m doing a special concert performance in the fall based on this material from the album and also more elements, both music composed for tape recorders and scenography, costumes, light, video. A whole set of other elements supposed to go together with this music.

SILY: The recorded part of it is way more minimal than your previous record--it’s just you and piano, down to the album title. Did you make that choice to keep the emphasis on the words?

Susanna: Yeah, I think there are so many layers and pictures and different moods in these poems, so I just wanted to give them lots of space to exist just the way that I made them. At least I wanted to start out there, to present them in that sparse way, and my plan for the poems is to take them with me in bigger settings after a while. We’ll see what that will be. I want to play these songs in other settings, maybe next year. For now, it’s all about the piano and the voice.

SILY: When you do your performance later, how are you going to go about still trying to maintain the emphasis on the poetry with all those additional elements?

Susanna: Well, the idea for that performance is to make sort of a setting to present the poems for the audience to take in in a slightly different way than a normal concert, because I want to make the whole room about the experience of this poetry. So it’s not just a normal stage and the audience. It’s more like we’re spread out in one big room, and there’s gonna be all kinds of visual elements surrounding us. Hopefully, emphasizing the both the songs and the poetry. There may be some recitals of the poetry. Just different elements linked together.

SILY: Overall, for this project, how do you decide how you’re going to sing the words and what piano melodies are going to go along with them?

Susanna: It is a little bit hard to answer because it’s not like I know all the poems from [The Flowers of Evil] very well. I just started to read, and I felt sort of a connection to certain poems. That’s kind of similar to the Bosch paintings, because for some poems, it felt like, “Oh, here’s a story with certain moods or pictures opening up to me.” I just felt like singing the words, so that’s how it started out, with just some chords or a riff or a mood. Or, I could quite easily hear a melody for the words and build it around that. It’s hard to explain.

SILY: When was the first time in your life you recall coming across Baudelaire’s words?

Susanna: I think that must have been around the time when I made Flower of Evil back in 2008. That was actually through a painting that was inspired by Baudelaire poetry. That’s how I found out about Baudelaire. Of course, I had heard his name before, but I didn’t really know so much about his work. That was the first time. It’s been random occasions where I’ve gotten to know a little bit. Diamanda Galás has done music to his poetry. There’s also a really cool record from the 60′s or 70′s by a woman called Ruth White called Flowers of Evil. It’s an electronic album with freaky recitals and lots of cool 60′s synthesizers.

SILY: Do you think the mood of this album pretty well matches the mood of the poetry itself? Or were you trying to create contrasts?

Susanna: I think this is my interpretation. The poetry is still open for interpretation by anyone who wants to read it and take it in. This is just one way to present it. It’s a little bit similar to cover songs, because it’s material people know, and they already have a perception of what it is, so it can go along with that or be sort of disturbing to people that someone’s bringing something else to the table.

SILY: How did you go about deciding the sequencing of the songs?

Susanna: That was a process that just lasted for some time after I recorded the songs. I started to listen back. I was trying to sort of make a track record that felt like a story that was evolving, but I also see each song as a separate story. I don’t know, exactly. [laughs] I do know that the concert performance will be in a different track order. It depends a little bit on the setting.

SILY: You have a lot of flexibility there because even though it’s just you and your piano, there’s a lot of variance within the songs in terms of tempo and the piano lines themselves. “The Enemy” and “Mediation” revolve around a repeated line, whereas others seem to be a bit more swaying in their melody. “The Vampire” has stop-starts, and there’s staccato in “A Pagan’s Prayer”. Was instrumental variation important to you?

Susanna: Yeah, I think so. That was part of the decision for making this album just about the piano and the vocals. The songs turned out the way that they did. It feels very much like each song is a separate world or identity. It feels very much to me that the piano voice is an important voice together with my singing. That’s how I wanted to present it.

SILY: Do you think in the future you could ostensibly present these songs along with other songs from your catalog, in a live setting?

Susanna: I’m hoping to be able to mix them up with my own songs. I think in the beginning I’ll probably play this program at different literature festivals and settings linked to the literature world. But I’m hoping to actually include them in my set.

SILY: What’s the story behind the cover art?

Susanna: All the drawings for the record and singles and everything are by Marjorie Cameron. She’s an American artist. She’s not alive anymore, so I’ve gotten the permission to use her art. She’s a favorite of mine; she was sort of an underground artist. She did paintings and drawings and small movies and things like that. There’s not much production of hers that’s around anymore, but there’s some. There’s an archive that has collected many of her things, so I’ve been able to get the permission to use her things. I think it goes very well with Baudelaire’s work.

SILY: You have these upcoming shows, but you had to cancel your dates through July. Would a live stream be of interest to you?

Susanna: I’m not sure. I haven’t been really keen on that idea. I think it’s a hard format to get through. But I’m constantly considering the possibilities that come along. Maybe I’ll do something in the fall, but right now, I haven’t planned anything. There were a lot of live streamed concerts in the beginning here, and the festivals are doing a small audience and then going online. I think I’d prefer to have an audience in the same room with me.

SILY: Did your government give artists a fair amount of money?

Susanna: There were different solutions for that for small businesses, and money you could apply for. They’ve recently made available some grants that we can apply for. So there will be some money. I guess it’s tough for many of us, but at least we have some kind of things that we can apply for, so that’s good.

SILY: Sounds like still not enough or ideally what it should be.

Susanna: It’s an uncertain situation. It’s hard not to worry about not just this year but the years to come, what’ll happen to the venues and places we usually play. I don’t feel very certain that we’ll have the same amount of places to play and options when we come out on the other side of this situation.

SILY: Or at least ones not owned by large conglomerates.

Susanna: Absolutely...I’m also kind of depending on going abroad Norway to play. I travel a lot outside of Norway in Europe and sometimes other places, but that’s not so easy now either...I don’t think I’ll plan for anything abroad this year, but maybe in a year or two.

SILY: What else is next for you?

Susanna: This project will be my main thing for a while. That’s what I’ve planned for. I’m going to write some more Baudelaire songs and take it with me in other settings, with other instruments and ways to present this material. That’s what I’m going to work with for the next year, so I’m excited about that.

SILY: Are these new songs from the same collection?

Susanna: All are from Flowers of Evil, but I’m not sure exactly which ones at this point.

SILY: Will they also be just your voice and piano?

Susanna: I’m not sure yet. Maybe they’ll come in different formats. Piano, vocals, and other instrumentation. At least that’s what I’m hoping to do.

SILY: What have you been listening to, reading, or watching lately?

Susanna: I’m very much into a French artist called Delphine Dora. She’s making a lot of really interesting [music]. She released one album earlier this year that I’ve been listening to a lot. She’s quite often releasing new things through Bandcamp, different kinds of collaborations or stuff she makes on her own.

youtube

0 notes